Eight Girls

When fifteen-year-old Argenta moves into Villa Debora, a faded Liberty villa tucked away in the heart of Milan, she is eager to help her mother, Sara, bring a long-held dream to life. The house is to become an all-female co-housing community: a refuge where women can rebuild their lives, support one another, and redefine the meaning of family.

As the neglected villa is restored, its first residents begin to arrive: women escaping violence, hardship, or loneliness, each carrying a story they are desperate to leave behind. Among them are Valeria and her daughter Adele. The same age as Argenta, Adele is everything she is not bold where Argenta is reserved, outspoken where she is cautious. Their uneasy first encounter slowly evolves into a fierce and transformative friendship.

Life at Villa Debora begins to resemble a fragile utopia. Under Sara’s guidance, the women cultivate a vegetable garden, cook together, work side by side, and build a community founded on care and solidarity. But as hidden tensions surface, the ideal they have created begins to fracture. Faced with the possibility of losing Adele, Argenta is forced to question the world her mother has built. Where does protection end and control begin? And how much freedom are we willing to surrender in the name of love, belonging, and safety?