Monica Pellizzari

JUST DESSERTS is a reflective and evocative film which looks at the development of Maria Stroppi's sexuality through food. Set in 70s' suburban Australia, the film deals with fragments of Maria's memories of her turbulent past growing up in an Italian Catholic family.

Sixteen-year-old Mars wants more from her life than just a fistful of flies which, to her, is a fistful of nothing. Stifled and dominated by her family, Mars just wants to be free. Denied relationships with the people who truly understand her, Mars battles her family on her own, and in her quest to be treated as a grown-up she gives her mother the courage to act and forces her father to make the choice of his life. A story about how a young girl finally finds the courage to have faith in herself.