Valentina and the MUOSters

Nearly thirty years old and still living at home with her family in Sicily, Valentina has begun to dream of change. Amidst her surroundings of delicately crooked trees and soft earth, the military has constructed MUOS satellites and exerted a control over the land that has left many feeling helpless. At first Valentina is content to crochet flowers and help her family at home, accepting the restrictions in movement as a tradeoff to living in her beloved Niscemi. But when her father’s health takes a turn, she quietly cultivates a desire to resist both the encroaching satellites and her family’s expectations of her. Blending patient vérité with moments of dreamlike hybridity, Valentina and the MUOSters is at once a deeply relatable coming of age story and an invitation into another world. (AL)