The White Space (Lo Spazio Bianco)

Maria (Margherita Buy), a fiercely independent single woman in her late 30s, discovers she is pregnant after a one night stand. When her daughter is born at only 6 months, Maria’s life is suddenly put on hold. Over the next 3 months, she is compelled to spend every day in the neonatal ward, waiting by the incubator to see if Irene will live or die.

She was not prepared for this. Maria knew a baby would turn her life upside down. But for a woman who has always relied on her own resources and made her own decisions, it is painful to accept that in this critical situation there is literally nothing she can do except wait for nature to take its course. To cope, she forces herself into a passive state, excluding the rest of the world and shutting herself away in an emotional white space. When the cocoon of solitude that she has wrapped around herself is put to a severe test, she realizes that she must engage again with her friends and colleagues, reclaim her life in order to find the strength she needs to support Irene in her fight for survival. Maria knows now, irrefutably, that no matter what happens next, the bond she has made with her daughter during these days will be forever after unbreakable and that she has finally been conquered by love.