Gli anni in bianco e nero

Maria, Giovanna, Ada and Mimì are four sisters in Salento in the 1960s who refuse to accept a future that has already been written for them. Through their eyes, the conflict between patriarchal tradition and the desire for freedom emerges in an Italy that is changing forever.

A novel of struggle and determination, about the right to dream of a life in colour.

Salento, 1960s. In the Elia family’s dressmaking workshop, time moves slowly under the authoritative gaze of a father who believes his daughters should know their place. But Maria, Giovanna, Ada and Mimì are four sisters unwilling to accept a future already written for them.

Giovanna rebels through music and forbidden love, Ada dreams of another life through the novels of Jane Austen, and Maria refuses to settle. And then there is Mimì, the youngest, who, through the films of Fellini and Visconti, discovers that reality can be told differently and decides she will be the one to hold the camera. As workers’ strikes erupt, student occupations spread and the first feminist groups emerge outside, a silent revolution takes shape inside the Elia household.

Mimì films everything: repressed dreams, unspoken violence and the longing for freedom, not in search of beauty, but of truth. Because by telling stories, lives can be changed – her own, and those of others.