1980s Italy. Arthur is not a typical protagonist. He is a straightforward stranger, at times indecisive and roughly charming. The raider of Etruscan tombs, dressed in a shabby linen suit, has just been released from prison, and languishes in the memory of his lost love, Beniamina. Returning to his beloved’s home seaside village in Tuscany, Arthur enjoys the attention of her mother Flora, a former opera diva, and her chaotic sisters. Blessed with an archaeologist’s instincts, he and his shady brothers in the trade unearth artefacts and sell them to the enigmatic Spartaco. Living in the past, he tries to find his present and, if his own foolishness doesn’t stand in the way, maybe also his future.

Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher, a luminary of European cinema, returned to Cannes this year with a vivid cinematic picaresque novel of a movie, which echoes the most personal works of Pier Paolo Pasolini and Federico Fellini. The director herself calls the film a cinematic poetry dedicated to Etruscan culture and the past – it is a film about a modern man who is a little confused by the present and alienated from the past. Josh O’Connor (from the Netflix series The Crown) is magnetic in this poem-like feast of song and image, history and memory, while Isabella Rossellini plays the big-hearted and wise mamma, but director’s sister, the chameleon-like Alba Rohrwacher, embodies a colourful character.

This film is screened as part of a cooperation with Lācis, lauva un zars.