At the end of the 19th century, in a farmhouse in the countryside of northern Italy, lives Maria, a young peasant girl who is by nature, simple and pragmatic. The farming community she lives in is tied up in its own cultural traditions steeped in magic and superstition. A belief of the place wills that, when the father in a family dies, it is the male child's duty to close his eyes. This way, the son inherits his father's wisdom and prevents the father from being condemned to watch the world changes that he can't live in. Maria ingenuously, betrays this social convention and her act determines her fate: the people's gossip soon isolates her and becomes an obstacle to her simple wish to marry and have children. Selva, a woman considered a witch because of her behavior which is unusual for these times. she arrives in the community with her companion Emilio Errani, an idealistic inventor who wants to try to modernize the back-breaking traditional farming methods. Maria becomes their ...