Independent Press Award
2025 Distinguished Favorite
Lucia Falcone
The Secret of Villa Rosa
Jason, an uptight, business-oriented American, accompanies his wife Luisa to her hometown, the island of Murano, in the Venetian lagoon. His day with Luisa’s light-hearted brother Giovanni, in search of the ‘red-door garage’, leads both men to find much more than a newly fixed car. While lost in the countryside, and with the help of a colorful cast of locals, Jason and Giovanni – two very different men with seemingly dissimilar experiences – find common ground. Laced with nostalgia and timeless humor, The Secret of Villa Rosa portrays the poignant and the farcical in people, as they struggle to understand the joys and the frailties of human experience, on either side of the ocean.