Genre: Romantic Comedy

Language: Italian with English Subtitles

Director: Silvio Soldini

Cast: Licia Maglietta, Bruno Ganz, Giuseppe Battiston, Marina Massironi

Released: 2000

Duration: 115 Minutes

Rating: M contains low-level offensive language

Distribution: Palace Films

The stand out hit of the 2000 festival; the Soldini film that stole everyone’s hearts.

During a coach tour, Rosalba (Licia Maglietta), a forty-year-old housewife, is ‘forgotten’ and left behind in a motorway service area. Rosalba overcomes her initial irritation and seizes the unexpected opportunity to escape from her everyday routine and embarks on a short adventure of her own, to Venice.

As soon as she arrives Rosalba phones her husband, but his unreasonable response and other chance occurrences induce her to stay in Venice longer than planned. She soon finds herself at home with a number of quirky new acquaintances: a lonesome restaurateur of Icelandic origins (who knows the Renaissance epic "Orlando Furioso" by heart) rents her a room, the anarchist Natale hires her as his assistance in the flower shop and she becomes close friends with the holistic masseuse next door.

Eventually, the news of her youngest son’s drug problem results in maternal guilt that drives Rosalba back home. When she arrives she discovers those problems are not as serious as she was told, but finds herself reunited with her dreamless and dreary life. Her new Venetian family has not given up hope however, and, as Fernando watches the last petal falling from the tulips left by Rosalba, the ‘Renaissance knight’ decides to "go down to Abruzzi" and bring the woman back...

Silvio, questioning as always the societal institutions and practices that all too often determine who we are, has created in ‘Bread and Tulips’ a post-modern fairytale whose ‘happy ending’ can only result from a journey away from ‘home’ and the forging of non-traditional relationships.

Winner 2000 David di Donatello: Best picture, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, director plus three more.

“The Italians say this is their favorite movie in years, and they are not without reason.” Robert Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.