Screening Dates: Sunday, November 2, 2025, 6:30 p.m. / Friday, December 5, 2025, 8:00 p.m. / Sunday, December 28, 2025, 2:00 p.m.

Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Screenplay: Alice Rohrwacher, Carmela Covino
Cast: Adriano Tardiolo, Agnese Graziani, Alba Rohrwacher

Italy / 2018 / 128 min. / Color / Italian / Turkish Subtitles

Happy as Lazzaro, a reference to the Christian saint of the same name, takes place on a tobacco farm owned by the village magistrate in a Tuscan village where the feudal system still persists. The story revolves around the bond formed between Lazzaro, a kind-hearted young peasant working on the farm, and Tancredi, the farm owner’s son, who lives under the curse of his imagination. When Tancredi asks Lazzaro to help him plan his own kidnapping, both their lives will change.

In this film, which won the “Best Screenplay” award at the Cannes Film Festival, Alice Rohrwacher explores religious and traditional motifs within the context of a rural worker’s story. Due to this pattern, which is quite common in the director’s cinema, critics have sometimes described her films as “pastoral fables.”

Based on a true story that took place in Tuscany in the 1990s, Happy as Lazzaro offers a reflection on the sanctity attributed to the concept of goodness, exploitation in the modern world, and class conflict.

* We would like to thank the Italian Cultural Institute for their contribution to the program.

** The film will be screened within the framework of European Film Month.