Marco Tullio Giordana achieved phenomenal critical success with his generational epic The Best of Youth, which was set against some of the most turbulent years in Italy′s history. Leaving the past behind, Giordana has set his new film squarely in the present a present that he believes was created from that history. Sandro is the 12-year-old son of an affluent small business owner. While yachting with his family, he falls overboard and is assumed drowned. In actuality he is rescued by a passing ship carrying illegal immigrants. Though he befriends Romanian teenagers Radu and his sister Alina, the journey home is an arduous one that will forever alter Sandro′s world. Giordana is dealing with issues of immigration and integration, and Italians′ ability or inability to deal with a massive influx of people who will inexorably alter the country. Sandro s age and his non-ideologically affected point of view was essential to the story, and allowed writers Sandro Petraglia, Stefano Rulli and Giordana to confront difficult questions of racism, solidarity, adaptation, coexistence and acceptance.