The Man Who Will Come (L'uomo che verra)

Winner of the Best Film Award at the David Di Donotello (Italian Academy) Awards 2010 and Rome's Grand Jury Prize as well as the Audience Award, THE MAN WHO WILL COME is a powerful and engrossing drama based on the World War II tragedy known as the Marzabotto Massacre, which confirms director and co-writer Giorgio Diritti as a major filmmaker in contemporary Italian cinema.

Winter, 1943. Martina (Greta Zuccheri Montanari), is a wide-eyed 8-year-old who hasn't spoken since her baby brother died in her arms. Now her mother, Lena (Maya Sansa), is pregnant again, and Martina looks forward to the new arrival. But 1943-44 is a difficult period, and Lena and her husband, Armando (Claudio Casadio), along with the other peasants, struggle to feed themselves and the families who've fled the city and are lodging in their spare rooms. Armando's sister (Alba Rohrwacher) has spent time in the city herself, adopting ways that grate on her mother (Maria Grazia Naldi). Meanwhile, the villagers struggle to lead a semi-normal life while debating how much assistance to give the partisans with the impending arrival of the Germans.

Early in his career, Diritti worked with Ermanno Olmi, and he tips his cap to his mentor by evocatively capturing village life in the countryside around Bologna with lyrical simplicity and austerely beautiful images.