Little Girl

Italian-Austrian documentarians Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel return to a milieu previously scrutinized in their 2005 film Babooska—the private lives of European circus performers—for this docudrama-style fictional narrative that features real people more or less playing themselves. A tiny traveling carnival-caravan in Italy is home to Walter and Patti (Walter Saabel, Patrizia Gerardi)—a middle-aged husband-and-wife team (in her wild, dyed-red hairdo, Patti is the target in his knife-throwing act)—and fatherless teen Tairo (Tairo Caroli), whom the couple endeavor to give some useful schooling. One day, Patti finds an adorable and seemingly abandoned 2-year-old girl and brings the toddler into their ersatz household. Walter fears what might happen if police—who are already suspicious of the gypsy-like circus folk—discover that they're harboring a foundling, but the small troupe grows to love the child, named Asia (Asia Crippa), and wind up procrastinating about informing authorities. A gentle, engaging Italian neorealist film, this is recommended. (C. Cassady)