Caterina in the Big City

Caterina va in città (Caterina in the Big City)
DVD cover for the film
Directed by	Paolo Virzì
Produced by	Ricardo Tozzi Giovanni Stabilini Marco Chimenz
Written by	Paolo Virzì Francesco Bruni
Starring	Alice Teghil Sergio Castellitto Carolina Iaquaniello Federica Sbrenna Margherita Buy Giulia Elettra Gorietti Claudio Amendola
Cinematography	Arnaldo Catinari
Distributed by	Empire Pictures
Release date	2003
Running time	106 min.
Language	Italian

Caterina va in città (English title: Caterina in the Big City) is a 2003 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Paolo Virzì and written by Virzì and Francesco Bruni.

Caterina (Alice Teghil) is the 13-year-old only child of Giancarlo Iacovoni (Sergio Castellitto), an aspiring novelist and teacher of accounting at a country school in an area north of Rome that one character describes as "hillbilly country." In spite of his often lucid assessments of modern society, Iacovoni is a typically burned-out teacher whom his job (perhaps among other, undisclosed personal experiences) has imbued with bitterness and social resentment, with a sheer lack of perspective concerning human relations, and with an overbearing, holier-than-thou demeanor that is a major plot point throughout the movie.

He relocates his daughter Caterina and his timid, long-suffering wife Agata (Margherita Buy) to his birthplace, Rome, after having finally secured a long-coveted teaching position. The family settles in Giancarlo's former district, where he reconnects with his neighbor and childhood friend, Fabietto (Silvio Vannucci). Once settled in the Italian capital, Caterina enrolls in a fast-track high school. She immediately finds herself pulled between two competing student cliques: a leftist bohemian contingent headed by Margherita Rossi-Chaillet and a right-leaning group headed by Daniela Germano. Both clique leaders come from socially prominent families. Margherita's mother is a noted intellectual and political writer. Daniela's father is a government minister who married into a wealthy family.

Margherita instantly adopts Caterina as her new best friend. The two girls attend rallies, visit graves of poets, and listen to Nick Cave records. Caterina eventually has a disagreement with Margherita due to being caught by her father drunk and having just gotten a tattoo from Margherita, and begins to gravitate toward Daniela's group. Margherita kisses Caterina, but it's a bit ambiguous as to whether this is to imply sexuality or a pact between them, as she says, to never betray each other. Daniela invites Caterina to join her at a wedding, where Caterina observes a group of neo-fascists pay homage to Daniela's father Manlio who, it is heavily implied, is a covert fascist himself. There is also a subtle hint at an intimate relationship between Daniela and her father's bodyguard.