ROSIE is a tragic and touching portrait of the pain of childhood and a young girl's search for love.

The story opens with thirteen-year-old Rosie in a juvenile detention centre. The scene shifts back to a much younger Rosie, roller-skating across the road with a bag of groceries. Suddenly she is smashed into by an oncoming car. Blood covers her limp body. Out of nowhere he appears - her love, her knight.

This scene provides a symbolic foundation for Rosie's eventual psychological deterioration. Much of the film is centred on the painful relationship she has with her mother, who hides the dark secret of Rosie's conception. Her mother and father are brother and sister.

Rosie attempts to create a world for herself where she is accepted and loved. Her growing sense of isolation is shown through her displaced romantic obsession with Joey, a rebellious and tormented wanderer, who we later find out is only a figment of her imagination.

A strikingly beautiful and understated portrayal of an adolescent's need to create a make-believe world in light of the harsh reality of her surroundings.