The painful truth of adoption sometimes bursts into the lives of middle-aged people unannounced: when aging parents or, after their departure, close relatives reveal that their entire existence is based on a loving lie. They discover that they have roots far away from the family and social context that they have always recognized as their home, and that they have been guests in a care institution between birth and adoption. The former Brefotrophy in Bari, for decades after the Second World War, took in children between the ages of 0 and 3, abandoned by single mothers or removed from their families because of their poverty. Similar institutions were scattered throughout Italy until they were closed in the 1990s as a result of a changing socio-cultural climate and a steady decrease in the number of children in need of care. "The Cradle Siblings" recounts some of the most significant stories of the thousands of little guests who once inhabited the building, cared for with compassion by a supportive female universe composed of nursemaids, nuns, laundresses, cooks, nannies, educators and social workers. All of this is punctuated by evocative archival footage and photographs, evidence of the profound changes in Italian society's conception of the feminine since the 1960s, and the signs of a past that still lives on in the daily lives of many of the former guests, dedicated to the challenging search for their biological and emotional roots.