Genre: black comedy; Duration: 100 minutes; Format: Cinemascope; Year: 2016; Shooting occurred: between April and May 2016. Released: February 2018 Producer: Genoma Films Srl (Paolo Rossi); Directed by: Antonio Pisu; Subject: Antonio Pisu – Federico Tolardo; Screenplay: Antonio Pisu – Federico Tolardo; Production manager: Emanuela Zaccherini; Director of photography: Dario Germani; Editing: Paolo Marzoni; Costumes: Anna Rizzoli – Scissor’s lab. Make-up and Costumes: Regina Lunelli Pancaldi and Annamari di Iorio; Scenography: Nicola Rimondi; Original Music: Fio Zanotti; Artistic director: Giambattista Assanti.

Plot

On the Bolognese hills, a family of fallen nobles survives its economic decline in the only place it still has: Villa La Quiete estate. They face the problem of war and crisis in the only way handed down from their families: simply by not caring. The Duke Pier Donato Martellini and the Duchess Romola Valli, tired and dejected, reside in their farm with the servitude now reduced to a minimum: a young blind gardener and a deaf butler, both veterans of war; and Giovanna, the cook constantly angry and eternally in love. What’s more, they must take care of their son Jean-Jacques: an immature fifty-year-old who spends his days composing poetry with a single recurring theme: the Bologna FC. The solution to all problems occurs at the villa in an afternoon like many others; a man and two women fleeing, ask for shelter from the Dukes; they are Jews, they are called Beniamino, Anna and Stefania. They are willing to pay with a gold bar every month of stay and promise to migrate elsewhere immediately after the end of the war. The Duchess, after accepting, does everything to quell every attempt by the servants and her husband to steal the treasure from the guests and take matters into their own hands. His order is simple: do nothing, wait for the family of “refugees” to keep the promise and donate more bullion in order to give the opportunity to the “fallen Martellini” to buy back all the properties, furniture, trinkets, family memories, silk tablecloths, ivory brushes, rocking unicorn collections, which over the years had been forced to commit, sell, or give away. The rents follow each other, the bullion increases and just when the Duke and the Duchess finally glimpsed a noble rebirth, the war ends. Terrified by the possibility of losing the only source of income, with the help of his son and domestic workers, they organize a series of daring ploy, pantomimes and subterfuges to pretend that the conflict is not over yet. One day, however, the villa presents a man whom Anna, Stefania and Beniamino know well: Franco. From that moment, everything changes, and nothing will be as it seems…