And Paola Senatore later became a bonafide hardcore porn star (although only briefly and as the result of serious drug addiction).
in "Beastialita" she played a girl romantically in love with a dog). Leanora Fani, who was actually quite a bit older than she looks here, was generally in much sleazier movies (i.e. Perhaps some of the confusion is in the casting. This is a serious art film, not exploitation.
Obviously, this movie broaches some subjects Anglo-Americans especially are rather paranoid about these days, but I don't think it really deserves comparison to the notorious "Maladolescenza". The teenage girl lets him sleep in her bed and confides him about her burgeoning sexuality and the illicit affair she is having with a local mulatto hood. The boy's larger awakening into adulthood, however, comes courtesy of his orphaned older cousin "Nene" (Leanora Fani), who comes to stay with his family. His parents are both emotionally damaged from the deprivations of war-there's an uncomfortable scene where he watches his mother (Paola Senatore) sexually service his father (Ugo Tognazzi), marks on her backside evident from the switch his abusive father likes to use on his family members (especially the female ones). The political events are mostly kept in the background, however, as this story is told from the perspective of a precocious nine-year-old boy, "Ju".
This movie is set in the late 1940's, a few years after the trauma of WWII and during 1948 Italian elections when the Italian Communist Party was surprising defeated at the polls (an election many now believe was stolen by the American CIA). Savatore Samperi is considered one of Italy's best directors in the comedy-drama genre, but international recognition has largely eluded him, perhaps because international releases of his films have been horribly, horribly dubbed into English (like his most seminal film "Malizia") or given wildly appropriate English-language titles (like the exploitative UK title of this one).