Italy, 1997. Clara and Irene, both 17, meet at a summer camp organized by the hospital that treats them—they instantly become inseparable. Instead of returning to their families, they run away to a faraway island off the coast of Sicily to live their first summer as carefree young women.

With delicate sound design and cinematography, this gentle coming-of-age film is attentive to the anxious desires of its protagonists, torn between bitterness and gratitude. The beautiful moments they experience, all the more intense for being fleeting, are so much evidence that life is a gift.