HAPPY AS LAZZARO “Lazzaro Felice”
Narrative Feature | 125 minutes

This film played at HIFF 2018
on 10/7/2018 and 10/8/2018


Directed By
Alice Rohrwacher

Produced By
Carlo Cresto-Dina

Executive Produced By
Martin Scorsese

Written By
Alice Rohrwacher

Adriano Tardiolo
Agnese Graziani
Alba Rohrwacher
Luca Chikovani
Tommaso Ragno
Sergi Lopez

2018 | Italian | Italy

Within an impoverished Italian countryside estate, a group of sharecroppers spend their days harvesting tobacco for their overbearing Marchesa, while the wide-eyed, innocent local Lazzaro (first-time actor Adriano Tradiolo) is at once beloved and taken advantage of by his fellow workers. One day, Lazzaro’s involvement in a kidnapping scheme at the hands of the Marchesa’s entitled son sets in motion a string of events that will push him towards a place and time far from his rustic home. Blending the lines between Italy’s history of neo-realism and bucolic fables into a transfixing parable of the country’s modern-day society, director Alice Rohrwacher’s (CORPO CELESTE, HIFF 2011) third feature is a stunning achievement of contemporary European cinema.