- Late '50s to early '60s, when the space war between the Soviet and US was fiercely going on, a fifteen-year-old member of the communist party, Luciana, develops her ideals while living with her bourgeois stepfather, and among male chauvinists in a communist group in Rome. Her only friend is her brother Arturo, who dreams of going to space but is unable to do so due to his epilepsy.—Pusan International Film Festival
- The film opens with nine-year old Luciana Proietti running away home from communion to declare to her exasperated mother Rosalba (Claudia Pandolfi), "Because Im a communist!", for which utterance her mother holds her brother Arturo (Pietro Del Giudice) responsible. We soon learn that the siblings are enthusiastic, if naive, inheritors of their deceased father's communist ideology. Their wide-eyed admiration of Soviet Russia is fuelled chiefly by the achievements of its space programme. Laika the space dog becomes a sort of idol for them, soon to be joined by Yuri Gagarin, the first man in outer space.
When Arturo develops epilepsy, Rosalba finds a sympathetic benefactor in engineer Armando (Sergio Rubini), an acquaintance. Later, partly out of gratitude and partly considerations of security, she marries him and the family moves in with him. Initially into the marriage, the children seem well-adjusted with Armando who treats Arturo's juvenile space fantasy with indulgence, gifting him a Gagarin poster.
By the time Luciana (Miriana Raschilla) turns 15, the siblings have become active in the youth wing of the Italian Communist Party in their Rome suburb, even as Arturo's medicine begins to exhibit strange side-effects like disorientation that start becoming embarrassing to her. At home, Armando slowly falls out of grace with Luciana partly owing to his contempt for communism and partly his attempts to assume their guardian's role. In her simplistic world, these efforts render him a Fascist in her eyes. As if to symbolize her defiance, she takes up smoking heavily. Meanwhile, Arturo takes to periodically withdrawing into his own make-believe world where powder collected from matchsticks can fuel a makeshift space rocket.
Ever eager to prove her commitment to the party's cause, Luciana overlooks the youth group's obvious sexism, partly out of utopian idealism and partly the adolescent crush she has developed on the group's undeclared leader Vittorio (Michelangelo Ciminale). However, Vittorio falls for Fiorella, the somewhat coquettish friend ironically inducted into the group by Luciana. To underline her show of indifference to this alliance, Luciana responds to group member Angelo's (Valentino Campitelli) overtures. Angelo dotes on her but Armando derides him as her fat boyfriend. Luciana's evenings out with Angelo invite Armando's consternation but his efforts to admonish her, with Rosalba's support, hardly succeed.
Luciana looks upon as a mentor Marisa (Susanna Nicchiarelli), the sole female leader of the party, whose husband is the party elder Leonardo (Angelo Orlando). They regard with amused indulgence Luciana's plan to write a letter to Khrushchev urging that Soviet Union send a woman to space to study the effects of space travel on a woman's physiology. Marisa confides in her that she's contemplating taking Luciana along in response to an invitation to visit Moscow. During this period, socialists have become objects of the group's pet hatred as Luciana's father's erstwhile comrades' characterization of them as traitors rub off on them.
The youth group participates enthusiastically in the election campaign that is soon to see their party emerge winners and way ahead of the socialists. With the big victory emboldening her, Luciana goads Vittorio, Angelo and a fourth member of the group to join her in a clandestine vandalism of the socialists party office one night unbeknown to the party elders. But when police suspects party elders and takes Leonardo away for questioning they begin to realize the implication of their action. However Vittorio prevails over them to hold their tongues quelling Luciana's unease and seems to briefly reciprocate her feelings for him.
However, soon he's found romancing Fiorella again. Luciana takes it out on her in school and as a result, earns a suspension. When Armando tries to discipline her she rebels, argues with the parents and storms out of the house. Next, she confronts Vittorio, but upon being rebuffed, returns home as angry as before. At the same time, she rejects Angelo in plain terms. Arturo reaches out to console her, but she lashes out at him too. Arturo disappears. She sobers up for a time, counting only on the trip to Moscow to escape out of her life's travails.
Out with Marisa, Luciana learns she's been rejected from the Moscow trip because her behaviour is considered unsuitable. Crestfallen, she turns against everyone including the party and after nightfall, tries to set fire to their own party office. Intercepted by Vittorio who confesses during the showdown that he's broken up with Fiorella, she melts and yields to him. At the same time, Rosalba and Armando visit the morgue to identify a corpse suspected to be Arturo's but luckily it turns out a false alarm.
Alone at home, Luciana receives a phone call meant as a tip-off to her mother on the whereabouts of Arturo. She undertakes the bus journey to the coast alone to find her brother who'd wandered off there. They return home and brother and sister once again engage in their favourite pastime, looking up at the sky lying on their terrace. even as Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space. The film ends with archive footage of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon 6 years later, signifying the end of the space race.
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