Italy, WWII. After his anti-fascist mother is arrested, Mario spends his childhood on the streets. In 1947 they are miraculously reunited and start a new life in America. Based on the life of Mario Capecchi, 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

The narrative takes place during World War II in South Tyrol. Little Mario (Lorenzo Ciamei) is only four years old when his mother (Laura Haddock) — the American poetess and political activist Lucy Ramberg — is arrested by the fascists in 1941 and interned in a German concentration camp. The future scientist is initially entrusted to a peasant family and then abandoned to a life of wandering and hardship between Bolzano and Verona. During this period Mario meets the twelve year old girl Frank (Sofia D’Elia), and her friend “Brother” (Ruben Buccella). These three war orphans, in pure Oliver Twist style, form a small gang that manages to survive by begging and stealing. In 1944, Mario sets off in search of his father Luciano Capecchi (Francesco Montanari), an air force pilot who had estranged him and his mother, who turns out to be a dangerous man. Mario decides to leave him and live from hand to mouth with his Dickensian friends, until they all end up in an orphanage. In 1947, when the global conflict is over, Mario and his mother miraculously find each other and embark upon a new life in the Unites States. Here they are greeted by Edward Ramberg (Edward Holcroft), Lucy’s brother, and his wife Sarah Sargent Ramberg (Elisa Lasowski), who take them to live with them in Pennsylvania, where they have founded a community of Quakers, north of Philadelphia. Still a fish out of water, teenage Mario (Jake Donald – Crookes) is unable to fit into the new context of normality until he discovers his passion for science, thanks to his uncle scientist.

Sponsored by Sandra & Bernie Meyer and Gail Bernstein