La Giara (The Water Jug)

La Giara begins in Sicily in 1909, when adolescent Nunzio Minissale's imperious

cutting in line at the town water fountain leads to breaking his aunt's giara -the

water jug. This incident unleashes a lifetime curse that crosses the Atlantic from

Sicily to the New World. La Giara becomes a symbol of the family's rupture and its

eventual reunion, challenging three generations of Minissale women.

Nunzio thinks he wears the pantaloni in his family until he instigates an incident

that prompts his wife and two daughters to disappear suddenly. Leaving behind

their successful family bridal business in Philadelphia, they use aliases and take a

cross-country train out West.

When the now wealthy and determined Nunzio finally locates them, he learns

that his "bimbas" are more resourceful than he imagined. Desperate to win them

back, Nunzio purchases an impressive mansion where he creates a seemingly

charmed lifestyle. However, their fairytale palazzo, full of mirrors, fountains,

opera, and singing birds, becomes a gilded cage that the Minissale women long to

escape.

In this inspiring story, long-shattered relations are eventually healed by Nunzio's

grandchildren, who discover that la giara, their symbolic container of traditions-some

broken, some lost, some retained-has endured the cracks and damage

caused by the patriarch of their troubled Sicilian family.