Aclà (1992)

Set in Sicily in the 1930s, the film tells the story of an eleven-year-old boy, Aclà, who is sold to a laborer who works in the sulfur mines at Floristella. For five years, from Monday to Saturday, the boy belongs to the miner and lives like the other miners: all week underground in the mine, and home on Saturday and Sunday. Aclà gets to know the special hell of the sulfur mine, its closed chambers, dusty and boiling hot, the physical and sexual violence, practiced by all in an implicit understanding. He decides to run away. Away towards the sea that he's never seen. The first time he tries it, he's caught, beaten, and sent back to the mine. He runs away again. When he's caught this time he's given an even worse beating, and sent back underground. But in the end, he finds the sea.