DVD: www.amazon.com thefilmarchive.org Two Women (Italian: La ciociara, roughly translated as "[The Woman] from Ciociaria") is a 1960 Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of a woman trying to protect her young daughter from the horrors of war. The film stars Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eleonora Brown, Carlo Ninchi and Andrea Checchi. The film was adapted by De Sica and Cesare Zavattini from the novel of the same name written by Alberto Moravia. The story centers on Cesira (Loren), a widowed Roman shopkeeper, and Rosetta (Brown), her devoutly religious twelve-year-old daughter, during World War II. To escape the Allied bombing of Rome, Cesira and her daughter flee southern Lazio for her native Ciociaria, a rural, mountainous province of central Italy. After they arrive at Ciociaria, Cesira attracts the attention of a young local intellectual with communist sympathies named Michele (Jean-Paul Belmondo). However, Michele is eventually taken prison! er by a company of German soldiers, who hope to use him as a guide to the mountainous terrain. Later, Cesira and Rosetta learn that he has been shot and killed by the same soldiers who took him hostage. After the Italian liberation, mother and daughter decide to go back to Rome. After experiencing mild harassment and propositioning throughout their journey, they fall subject to an unexpected tragedy. As they rest in a bombed-out church, they are captured and gang raped by Goumiers (Moroccan allied
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