Tea With MussoliniTea With Mussolini

Based in part on his autobiography, director Franco Zeffirelli's Tea with Mussolini is a story about a group of British and American travelers on an indefinite visit to Italy in 1935. Luca is a boy living in Florence whose family situation is precarious at best; his mother has run off and his father has little time for him. Fortunately, he's a welcome guest with Mary, a English woman visiting Italy to soak up European culture. Mary and her friends enjoy the cultured, creative atmosphere of life in Italy, and their initial response to the rise of fascism is to arrange a polite meeting with Mussolini to make sure he and his soldiers mean well.