The witty, loving, and intensely intelligent Maria, a Polish writer who has recently won the Nobel Prize in Literature, is enjoying her semi-retired life in a small town in Tuscany surrounded by her loving family. Beyond this bucolic Italian paradise, however, tensions are mounting. Those in the quiet Tuscan town, as in other places in Europe, are growing increasingly concerned about the influx of refugees and immigrants.
Passionate and independent, Maria finds such xenophobic attitudes unpalatable and is having a secret affair with a younger Egyptian man who lives in the community. After a terrorist bombing in Rome and her controversial acceptance speech of her literary prize, suddenly the community looks at Maria very differently. The consequences of her defiant words, and her affair, are unpredictable, even dangerous, as her small town and Europe itself lurches toward a new and unpredictable path.
Launched to critical acclaim at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, Borcuch’s film features a towering performance by Polish screen legend Krystyna Janda, for which she won a Best Acting Award at Sundance. As impassioned and articulate as its protagonist, Dolce Fine Giornata is a provocative, insightful drama about our troubled, tense, turbulent times.
-Tom McSorley