Vergine, e di nome Maria (1975)

Overview

A second coming? This time our savior chose a shantytown outside Turin, in the north of Italy, overcrowded by poor families coming from the south in search of a job in a factory, or less legal ways to survive. Young Maria (Cinzia De Carolis) can predict the future during her epileptic seizures, or at least that's what everyone believes, and her mother (Clelia Matania) sells her predictions and responses to the superstitious neighbors, after inducing her "trance" with electricity. One night the shock is too strong, and Maria seems to die: when she wakes up, she is found pregnant. And being a honest unmarried girl from the south, she is obviously still virgin... Notwithstanding the opposition of the local priest (Turi Ferro), everyone, including her, believes in the miracle, and prepares for a second coming, in a crescendo of fanaticism that is soon noticed by the press, and by the official church..