Life Goes This Way


Life Goes This Way is a 2025 Italian comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Riccardo Milani. Starring Virginia Raffaele, Diego Abatantuono, and Aldo Baglio, the film "inspired by a story that has traveled the world and ended up on international headlines," was selected as the opening film of the 20th Rome Film Festival and screened out of competition on 15 October 2025 in the Grand Public section.
A week after its festival premiere, the film was released in the Italian cinemas on 23 October 2025.
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Synopsis

The narrative of film is a humorous and passionate tale set over a twenty-year period, in the region of Sardinia. It explores the experiences of a local community grappling with tensions between economic development and the preservation of their land and cultural identity.

Cast

Production

The film was inspired by the life of Sardinian shepherd Ovidio Marras, who died in January 2024 at the age of 93. Marras garnered national and international attention for opposing a high-profile tourist development that endangered one of Italy's last untouched coast-line.
The film written by Riccardo Milani and Michele Astori, is produced by Mario Gianani, Lorenzo Mieli and Sonia Rovai with Medusa Film and Wildside as co-distributors.
Filming began in Cagliari with shooting taking place in the Teulada, Sardinia commune in the south-west region in February 2025. The film was completed on 4 August 2025.

Release

Life Goes This Way opened the 20th Rome Film Festival on 15 October 2025. On 23 October 2025, it was released in Italian cinemas by Medusa Film.

Reception

Box office

The film was released on 23 October 2025 on 650 screens throughout Italy. It opened at the top of the Italian box office with €124,994.
the film has collected from 881,753 admission in Italy.

Critical response

Vittoria Scarpa in her review for Cineuropa, describes the film both as "a story about a Sardinian shepherd against the world" and a portrait of a divided community grappling with tensions between economic survival and environmental preservation. She notes that the film depicts a setting where "the State is all but absent," local institutions are easily swayed, and justice is embodied by a locally born judge, whose brief appearance is nonetheless "swift but significant" and ultimately just. Scarpa criticized the film's pacing and structure, observing that its nearly two-hour runtime feels repetitive. Although the narrative spans a decade, she finds that "the characters and settings remain pretty much the same," and that comedic elements of Aldo Baglio occasionally feel out of place. While she considers these shortcomings "fairly trivial," and adds that "you don't expect them from a director of Riccardo Milani's calibre, who's now on his 16th feature film."