The film is about a Roman man named Gianni who lives with his 93 year old mother in an old apartment in Rome, Italy. He hasn't paid rent or maintenance in years. In order to settle his debt, he agrees to take elder Italian women like his mother whose families go on holiday or vacation abroad leaving them behind in Rome. Instead they stay at Gianni's apartment with his mother. The guest goes from one to four quickly. Soon the apartment is filled with laughter and life again. The four women are very distinct in personalities but they get along. This film is very short about 75 minutes or so. The cast including the elder actresses do a splendid job in their roles. The setting of Rome, Italy is wonderful where you see how Romans live for real.

Writer/director Gianni Di Gregorio is also the star of this delightful little film about loneliness, tolerance, and seeing the silver lining. The film glows with a richness of spirit that is very satisfying and humorous and uplifting. Apparently Pranzo di Ferragosto (or Feast of Assumption) is that holiday in mid august when all Italians head for the shore so get away from the heat. Gianni lives in Rome with his very elderly and demanding mother (Valeria De Franciscis), broke, with mounting tabs at the grocers and the winery, but he prides himself in his culinary skills with which he keeps his mother satisfied. He spends his days whopping and sipping wine with his old friend Viking (Luigi Marchetti). When his friend and condo manager Alfonso (Alfonso Santagata) pays a visit to remind Gianni how he is behind in his rent and obligations for the condo, Gianni is depressed but Alfonso has a plan: take care of his mother (Marina Cacciotti) during the weekend of Pranzo di Ferragosto and Gianni's debts will be forgiven. Gianni agrees as does his mother, but when Alfonso arrives with his mother in tow he also brings his aunt (Maria Cali) who also needs a place to stay in Alfonso's absence. The local doctor (Marcello Ottolenghi) pays a house call to check on Gianni and his mother and in passing asks Gianni to look after HIS mother (Grazia Cesarini Sforza), too. This leaves Gianni with a full house, a shared television, minimal beds, but they all make do and with the help of his old friend Viking the two to entertain the three old ladies. They cook a fine mid-August meal and the old lades dress up and dance, having more fun than they have had since their youth. It is a slight story but one told with a warmth and compassion that is endearing to experience. For light but tender entertainment this film is a major winner! Grady Harp

To help pay some debts, Gianni, an unemployed, single, middle aged man, agrees to look after four very old women for a night. Antics DO NOT ensue, as you might expect, but friendship food,and joy. The director, Gianni Di Gregorio, wrote it, acted in it, used his own apartment, based it on an incident in his own life, and then and cast the women from hundreds of non-professionals. The result is a unique and brilliant short story of a film. It was pointed out that August 15 is Feast of the Assumption, and that in religious mythology Mary "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory". The old women in this movie are also ascending to heaven without death, and the movie glories in the blessings and quirks of old age. If you love your mother, Italy, or Italian movies – see it!

The events of this "small" (and short: just 75 minutes) movie take place in Rome, in the popular Trastevere district, over two days: the 14th and the 15th of August. Those are the eve and the holiday of Ferragosto, when everybody in Italy wishes to be out of town with their loved ones, friends or family, to enjoy a relaxing day in the cool. This is not the case of Gianni, a middle-aged, single man, who finds himself trapped in his own home with his elderly mother. Gianni has a problem with money (from the appearance and location of his house, and the refined, posh way of speaking of his mother, we soon learn that he belongs to an impoverished high middle-class family), so when the manager of his block of flats proposes to cut off all his debts if he provides hospitality for a couple of days to his own elderly mother, Marina, Gianni cannot refuse. For a few hundred Euros he agrees also to look after to "zia Maria", the manager's elderly aunt. Later, after an umpteenth free call, Gianni cannot refuse to give hospitality to his doctor's mother, Grazia, an elderly woman on a strict diet. Gianni manages to find beds for the three women and finds himself full-time employed in their care: cooking all their meals, helping Grazia to get asleep, coping with Marina's whims, helping the ladies to get along... Many funny moments follow,especially due to the eccentricity and sometimes childishness of the elderly ladies. None of them is played by a professional actress, and their spontaneity is put to great effect. In spite of the comedy and the light tone, what you get here is a movie filled with serious, even somber themes: the role of elderly people in our society, their loneliness, the inability of their children to deal with them. But we also see the liveliness of the ladies, their desire to live a full life till the end, their respect for those who have a kind word for them. A well-made, important film, which deserves the success it's having in Italy.