EUFF 2023: Io Sto Bene

Luxembourg/Belgium/Germany/Italy | Donato Rotunno | 2020 | 94 min

In Luxembourgish, Italian, French, and English with English subtitles

In the late 1960s, Antonio and cousins Vito and Giuseppe leave their beloved Italy in search of employment. While his cousins head for Belgium, Antonio settles in Luxembourg, working as a bricklayer. Full of dreams, he intends only to stay a few months, make some money, and return home. Life has other plans. Years later, we encounter an elderly Antonio, recently widowed and preparing to move into a care facility. In the process he meets Leo, a young DJ from Italy who, like his younger self, has traveled abroad seeking fame and fortune and is now facing serious life challenges. Their friendship soon enlivens Leo’s hopes for her future and gives Antonio a fresh reflection on his abiding sense of exile. Alternating between past and present, Io sto bene is a moving, bittersweet reflection on life, friendship, and time’s passage from the director of Baby(A)lone, an EUFF 2015 selection.

“An enjoyable, understated melodrama … The heart of Io sto bene lies in the scrapbook events of everyday lives … Rotunno sweeps us through the loyalties and betrayals, marriages and deaths, relationships and regrets with all the skill of a novelist.”

Allan Hunter, Screen International

“A sober drama which sees two generations of Italian expats crossing paths between the past and the present … in a game of mirrors whose various reflected faces are all united in their search for a better life.”

Vittoria Scarpa, Cineuropa