Where it was filmed 'Nothing Left to Do But Cry'

Set in Tuscany, the film was shot entirely in the countryside of Lazio.

In the opening scene, we see Saverio go to his car, where he waits for Mario. The pair leave a few buildings and a bar behind them: the exterior of Bracciano hospital. A few minutes later they’re in the car, waiting at a level crossing with its barrier down: the film takes place in Tuscany, but this scene was filmed in Capranica (VT).

Tired of waiting, Mario and Saverio decide to take a dirt road, but when they are caught unawares by a storm and the car breaks down, they seek shelter under a centuries-old tree near Bracciano lake. The night creeps up on them and the pair happen upon the Al Gatto Rosso inn, which is actually located in Guidonia-Montecelio (Rome).

The next day, caught up in a time paradox, they wake up in the late 1400s. Their reactions, after their initial bewilderment, are very different: Saverio dons the Medieval clothes of Vitellozzo’s brother, and tries to fit in in Frittole (the interiors and exteriors were reconstructed at Cinecittà studios), whilst Mario more shyly refuses to leave the palace where Vitellozzo has put them up, limiting himself to standing at the window to see what’s going on outside. It is then that a preacher turns to him, saying ‘Remember that you must die’ again and again'.

But Mario’s disorientation doesn’t last long, as a few scenes later he takes a shine to Pia during a religious ceremony at the Church of Santa Maria in Celsano, in the small village of Santa Maria di Galeria (Rome).

Upon discovering that they have more specifically stepped back to 1492, the pair decide to embark on a quest to stop Colombus, who is about to set off from Palos in Spain and discover America. Along the way, they come across ancient checkpoints (portrayed in one famous scene: “Halt! Who goes there? What are you carrying? Yes, but how many of you are there? A florin!” was shot in Borgo di Rota, (municipality of Tolfa, in the province of Rome), and try to make an impression (“is 9x9 really 81?”) on an unlikely Leonardo da Vinci, in the middle of his experiments in the lake Pellicone in the Vulci archaeological park (VT).

When they arrive in Palos however things don’t go as planned: the scene wasn’t shot in Spain of course, but on the beach in Cala di Forno, in the municipality of Magliano in Tuscany, in the heart of the Natural Park of Maremma.