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Maurizio Sciarra made his feature directorial debut with this Sicilian love story amid the tensions of Italy's fascist period. The romantic drama is adapted from Domnico Campanas' novel about an aristocratic anti-fascist, the Marquis of Acquafurata (Giancarlo Giannini). The nobleman secretly leaves Paris and returns to his ancestral home in southern Sicily. Posing as his own butler, he plans to sell his palazzo and its antiques, while also offering aid to local anti-fascists in a rescue of the artist Modigliani from his prison on the island of Lampedusa. When he gives his townhouse to a country family as a move to keep it from the fascists, he comes in contact with young peasant girl Rosalia (Tiziana Lodato), and a romance develops. Shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.