Set in 1900, Lili d’Alengy, a Parisian cocotte at the height of her fame, flees Paris to hide her “idiot” daughter. There she meets Maria Montessori, who is pioneering a teaching method that may help the child.
Set during the second world war, the sentimental education of a sensual adolescent girl, growing out of her childhood in a small, impoverished village in Southern Italy.