Before Us

1917. Maurizio Sartori, a deserter on the run, takes refuge at the Tassan farmhouse and falls in love with Nadia, who decides to keep his secret. However, after the end of World War I, Nadia discovers she is pregnant, and he chooses to flee.

1919. Nadia is reunited with Maurizio, and after forgiving him, she marries him. Maurizio starts working at the factory, where he befriends Leone, but a clash with the fascists leads to both of their arrests. Sartori avoids arrest by denying that he is a deserter, but he sinks into alcoholism. Meanwhile, the family grows with the arrival of Gabriele, Domenico, and Renzo.

1930. Maurizio is blackmailed by the fascists, the Becchiarutti family, who have discovered his past desertion: he tries to resist, but faced with the threat to his children, he is forced to betray Leone and the other communists, who are sent into exile. Meanwhile, Nadia loses her job as Edda’s nanny after Edda is struck and killed by a car.

1938. The children are now grown, and Nadia senses that war is coming, while Maurizio—tormented by guilt over his past betrayal—runs into Leone, who has just returned from exile. One evening, while his wife and children are at the movie theater’s opening night, Maurizio helps a woman on the street and shortly afterward collapses to the ground, overcome by the bitter cold.

1943. Maurizio has been dead for some time, and his sons Renzo and Gabriele have doubts about him because they’re beginning to realize that he was a deserter, despite their mother’s reassurances. Renzo wants to join the Resistance and Leone’s group, but his mother is against it because he is still a minor. Gabriele begins a relationship with a girl named Margherita, and just as he is about to go to war, he is stopped because the armistice is signed on September 8. Domenico, on the other hand, dies in Africa after having a vision of his father.

May 1945. Gabriele can no longer bear to stay in hiding; he emerges from his hiding place, is reunited with his Margherita, and—to be forgiven for desertion—enlists in the German army. Renzo, on the other hand, is hiding in the mountains with Leone’s group, even though his mother urges him to return home because he has gotten a girl, Federica Drigo, pregnant. The group heads down into the valley to free some female partisans but runs into enemy soldiers; Leone, after saving Renzo, is fatally wounded. Meanwhile, during a house search, Gabriele rebels and kills a German soldier, freeing a group of Italians who were hiding there. Shortly afterward, Gabriele, Margherita, Flaviut, and Renzo return home because the war is over.

1955. The war has been over for ten years now. Gabriele is a schoolteacher and still lives in the small village with his mother, Margherita, and his daughter, Eloisa, while Renzo lives on the streets of Turin as a homeless man until he finds work at Teresa’s inn. Years later, Gabriele runs into Federica Drigo again and discovers that she has a son named Luigi and that she hates his family—something he cannot understand.

1961. Gabriele runs into Luigi on the street—Renzo’s illegitimate son, who was raised by Flaviut (Leone’s son, now in prison) and Federica—and takes him under his wing. At Eloisa’s First Communion, Grandma Nadia gets to meet her daughter-in-law Teresa but doesn’t see Renzo, who still doesn’t want to see her. Shortly afterward, Teresa discovers by pure chance that Renzo has cheated on her with a journalist from *L’Unità* whom he had met some time earlier, so she shows up at the factory and exposes him in front of his coworkers. Renzo then decides to return to Friuli to his mother after fifteen years of silence: she welcomes him back into the house, deeply moved, and scolds him for his actions.

1975. Eloisa studies law and frequents anarchist circles, where she meets Luigi, a newly graduated doctor whose father, Flaviut, remains in prison. Davide focuses on bodybuilding, while Libero and Diana navigate adolescence. Renzo wakes up in the hospital, saved by Luigi. When Sartori confesses to Luigi that he is his real father, the young doctor reacts bitterly, forcing Sartori to cancel his upcoming marriage to Eloisa via letter. Undeterred, Eloisa joins student protests and visits Flaviut in prison. Gabriele tries to reconnect with Davide, only to discover his boxing coach is Margherita’s ex-boyfriend—a revelation that deepens their rift and leads to their separation. Diana falls for Sandra after a club performance and stuns her father by deciding to move in with her. Meanwhile, newlyweds Libero and Marta welcome a baby girl, Nadia, shortly before Marta departs for Africa.

1978. Nadia dies after suddenly falling ill at her farmhouse, and the whole family rushes to her side in despair, with Renzo feeling the most anger. Luigi comforts Eloisa as she has a panic attack and tells her that he is Renzo’s son—and therefore her cousin. Gabriele urges his daughter not to let Luigi slip away, just as he did with Margherita. Eloisa and Luigi then reunite and read a letter from Grandma Nadia that Gabriele hadn’t had the courage to open, in which she recounts many details of her relationship with her husband. During this family reunion, Renzo and Gabriele find peace with their wives and children. Finally, Davide takes in a young woman who has fled East Berlin, just as Nadia had done with Maurizio sixty years earlier.