Alba Rohrwacher

"Elusive Mist" is a documentary about Serbian writer Duro Damjanovic-a persecuted dissident and patriot whose work earned him the most prestigious literary prizes and a place in anthologies of Serbian literature. "Elusive Mist" is a documentary about Serbian writer Duro Damjanovic-a persecuted dissident and patriot whose work earned him the most prestigious literary prizes and a place in anthologies of Serbian literature. Damjanovic embodied the ancient bohemian spirit that Serbian literature celebrated through figures like Tin Ujevic and Rade Drainac. His life and writings were marked by a rejection of material values and symbols of success, asserting that the true meaning of life is only revealed after death. This film tells the story of the last bohemian of Banja Luka-a genius whose creative potential was curtailed by the circumstances of his life. Though he was unable to complete all he wished to write, his greatest book is still being written. —RTRS

An unceasingly kind Italian peasant and his family are blatantly exploited by a tobacco baroness. This is the tale of a meeting between Lazzaro, a young peasant so good that he is often mistaken for simple-minded, and Tancredi, a young nobleman cursed by his imagination. Life in their isolated pastoral village Inviolata is dominated by the terrible Marchesa Alfonsina de Luna, the queen of cigarettes. A loyal bond is sealed when Tancredi asks Lazzaro to help him orchestrate his own kidnapping. This strange, improbable alliance is a revelation for Lazzaro--a friendship so precious that it will travel in time and transport Lazzaro in search of Tancredi. In the big city for the first time, Lazzaro is like a fragment of the past lost in the modern world. Lazzaro (Adriano Tardiolo) is so good-natured and helpful that he seems out of this world. He lives and works together with others on the isolated Inviolata estate. Its unscrupulous owner Marchesa de Luna (Nicoletta Braschi), known as the "Queen of Cigarettes", not only controls everyone on her estate, but also her imaginative son Tancredi (Luca Chikovani), who comes to Inviolata one day. When he asks Lazzaro for help in faking his own kidnapping, an ever closer friendship grows between the two young men. It outlasts time, as does the discovery of a major fraud that splits the community of Inviolata apart and leads Lazzaro to the distant city in search of Tancredi.