Gianluigi Bruni

Thirteen-year-old Giampiero is the teenage son of a decaying family. He gets to know Romana, a girl of his age, and they fall for each other. The trouble is that Romana lives in a Romani settlement set up near the block where he lives. Now, the coexistence between the travelers and the sedentary population is not without problems, so much so that violence winds up erupting. On the other hand, Romana's father is forced, to honor a gambling debt, to sell his daughter to a traveling merry go round owner. Giampiero, then decides to go in search of Romana and to elope her, as they had promised to each other...

Set in 1960, the year of the Rome Olympics, a 13 year-old boy with aspirations to become an athlete befriends an ageing, disabled bus driver who understands his ambitions.