FEATURE

Through a few dream-like, discreet and beautifully placed sequences, the director makes us believe that a world of empathy and accord may someday exist again.

-The Playlist

Winner of the Best Screenplay award at Cannes, this enchanting film is a beguiling allegory of life, love, loss and compassion in Italy’s past and present. It’s summer at Inviolata, an isolated rural estate, where an extended family of tobacco farmers toil under the rule of a domineering marchesa, the fearsome ‘queen of cigarettes’. Lazzaro is a naïve, affable young man who loves helping everyone without any hint of unpleasantness or anger. When he becomes the unlikely friend and accomplice of Tancredi, the marchesa’s dandified son, the narrative takes a sly and unexpected spin. Shooting in the warm glow of super 16mm, director Alice Rohrwacher casts a magical spell while crafting an engaging portrayal of country life in a changing Italy.