The short story, first published in 1929, tells the story of a girl, Edda Marty, who joins (the only woman) a boys’ class, to attend the last year of high school in Trieste. Edda is a rebellious, free and non-conformist girl, in contrast to her provincial and somewhat narrow-minded family environment. In spite of her efforts to establish a camaraderie with her classmates, her presence stirs up disturbances, falling in love and an attempted suicide. The male protagonist is Giorgio Antero, with whom Edda experiences a tender adolescent love affair. The intervention of Antero’s possessive and selfish mother, who will ask Edda not to accept the boy’s love, and the subsequent misunderstandings between the two lovers (also following the attempted suicide of another companion, again for love of Edda), will put an end to the story between the two protagonists. After the high school graduation exam, the boys will meet again at a farewell dinner tinged with melancholy and sad omens due to the warnings of an imminent war. The dinner, in fact, takes place on 28 June 1914, the day of the tragic attack in Sarajevo, universally known as the fuse that set off the immense fire of the Great War. In the film directed by Franco Giraldi, the story is set in 1913, while the tale takes place in 1910, when enrolment in public school in Trieste was also opened to girls.
Source
Genre: drama
Cast
Mario Adorf: Prof. Taucer
Mario D’Arrigo: Aldo Pasini
Franco Garofalo: Wieselberg
Franco Giraldi: Wieselberg
Margherita Guzzinati: Hedwig
Laura Lenzi: Edda Marty
Paolo Morosi: Neranz
Stefano Patrizi: Giorgio Antero
Juliette Mayniel: Giorgio’s mother
Soundtrack Luis Bacalov
