Inmate(1981)

Inmate is an Italian drama about Francesco Improta, an honest fruit and vegetable peddler struggling to support his elderly mother Assunta and daughter Fiorella. Two years earlier, his wife Lucia abandoned the family to become the mistress of local crime boss Peppino Ascalone, a sacrifice she made to ease the family's financial burden. Now trapped in that arrangement, Lucia remains bound to Ascalone while Francesco grapples with her absence and the shame it brings. The film explores themes of poverty, desperation, and the moral compromises ordinary people make when survival is at stake. Set against the backdrop of a struggling working-class community, Inmate examines how economic hardship fractures families and forces impossible choices on those with few options.