The isolated life on an islander

Eighteen-year-old Arsa lives alone on a sparsely populated island off the coast of Sicily. Arsa’s independence anchors a story about a young woman whose attention seems to have drifted away from the outside world. Directed by a pair of visual artists who go by the name MASBEDO,* the movie depicts the life of a teenager (Gala Zohar Martinucci) who shows little interest in connecting with others. Filmed on the volcanic island of Stromboli, Arsa — named for its main character — moves slowly as Arsa tries to process the death of her father, a sculptor whose creativity was stifled by the commercial interests of his boss. Another character, Jacopo Olmo Antinori's Andrea arrives on the island with two other young men. Andrea, who has also lost his father, tries to connect with Arsa; she eventually sleeps with him, but isn’t about to reciprocate his emotional outreach. To support herself, Arsa collects trash that washes onto the island's shores and sells it to a recycler who visits by boat,…