La levatrice

1917. In rural Sardinia, Mallena, a strong and determined woman, is an experienced midwife who helps the women in Norolani give birth without charging them. As her husband Jubanne returns maimed from the war, she has to face the arrival of a qualified obstetrician from the mainland.

An extraordinary tale of female revenge and solidarity that, through the scent of herbs and the rugged land, as well as the poetry and rawness of daily life in early 20th-century Sardinia, explores the clash between ancestral wisdom, modernity, and progress.

Mallena has become the point of reference of Norolani, a small village in inland Sardinia. She is a llevadora: she helps all the women in labour by applying age-old knowledge inherited from her mother. She asks for nothing in return, except a couple of slices of cheese or a loaf of bread. But everything changes when her husband Jubanne returns from the front, injured in both body and soul. In order to be able to afford to pay for the treatment of this man, who married her to shield her from a fate that hovered over her like a sentence, Mallena urges the mayor to remunerate her for her work. Not only is she is denied this subsidy, but, in compliance with a royal decree, a qualified obstetrician is employed, intended to replace her.

Angelica Ferrari arrives from the mainland. Although she is young, she has long fought to be here, defying social convention and the disapproval of her father, who wanted her to be a wife and a mother. Now, however, she must face the wariness of the village women: despite the official prohibition, women still choose Mallena, partly because the new obstetrician uses modern methods like the forceps and doesn’t speak their language. The women of Norolani rebel and obtain permission for Mallena to continue practising, even without formal recognition.

Mallena and Angelica should be rivals, and yet they are two sides of the same coin: both are driven by a desire for freedom and independence, both are victims of the daily injustice the world serves women.