Orio Vergani

At 18, the beautiful and intelligent Kira comes to Petersburg as the Communists consolidate power. She rebuffs a cousin who rises in the Party and may remember the slight. She falls in love with Leo, the son of an aristocrat, who gets into political trouble and never gets out.

Three directors collaborated on the Italian documentary Continente Perduto. The "lost continent" of the title is Asia, specifically Indonesia, here lovingly photographed in Ferraniacolor by Mario Craveri, Giannni Rafaldi and Franco Bernetti. Highlights include a Cantonese wedding aboard a floating junk, the annual wheat and rice harvest, the animal-sacrifice rites at the rim of a volcano, a ceremonial chariot race, and a bevy of Balinese dancers. Though there's no story to speak of, the film has the rhythm and pace of a "continuity" picture. Continente Perduto was the winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.