Stay With Me, Sister

Two women trapped by social norms in the early 20th century dare to dream for more.

After the Spanish Flu, Anita finds herself in a vulnerable situation when her stepbrother is caught stealing money. He should go to prison, but then who would provide for the rest of the family? They would starve on her meagre salary. She confesses to a crime she did not commit and is sentenced to spend years of labor in the female prison of Giudecca.

While Fascism rages in the real world, Anita forges an odd and intimate friendship with Noemi, a fellow inmate. Neither Noemi nor the nuns who guard them ever reveal Noemi’s crime. Convinced that she has “the devil inside”, they warn Anita to keep her distance. But a bond is born between them that defies social order. Circumscribed to the stone walls that surround them, Anita and Noemi dream of a future without a husband or a father to protect them. Anita, whose sentence ends first, will wait for Noemi and they will open a tailor shop together. But when the day of her friend’s release arrives, Anita discovers Noemi’s secret. The forces of reality prove to be fiercer and less forgiving than their love for each other.

Rights sold:
Albania (Botimet Polis)
Greece (Pedio SA)
Macedonia (Sigma)