Alice Rohrwacher

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.

Heart problems are like Tsunami. They come crashing everything on their way: life, life of families, hopes, dreams. First you know - you need to survive. But even more important after you survive - you need to find a way to live full life one more time. —anonymous