The Bride of Calabria

Natina Manglaviti is 20 and her wedding is just a week away. She lives in a small village high up in the mountains in the southernmost tip of Italy. Her father, Giuseppe, is a peasant farmer cultivating 60 acres. Natina approaches her wedding with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. Her fiance is the son of a family friend but, because of local custom, she has never spent a moment alone with him. Natina and her mother pack the trousseau, bottles are filled with home-made wine, 70 loaves are baked for the feast, and Natina has the last fitting of her wedding dress. On the day there's a ten-course lunch for 600 guests. They dance the famous tarantella. Giuseppe is proud to set up his daughter in marriage. 'The greater the head of the family', he says, 'the finer and bigger the wedding feast'.