Semi-autobiographical film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, telling the story of young Italian boy Luca’s upbringing by a circle of English and American women, before and during World War II.

A big family that like any other one includes relatives that see each other often and others that rarely meet, reunite to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of grandma Alba and grandpa Pietro in a big Villa, on the island they moved to. Because of weather conditions they all remain stranded on the island and the idyll between them seems to be over.

Although liberated from Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, Levi did not reach Turin until October 19 of that year. After spending some time in a Soviet camp for former concentration camp inmates, he embarked on an arduous journey home in the company of Italian former prisoners of war from the Italian Army in Russia. His long railway journey home to Turin took him on a circuitous route from Poland, through Russia, Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany.