Happy Winter (2018): cast, story & where to watch

Released in 2018, Happy Winter is a documentary film directed by Giovanni Totaro, running about 91 minutes.

What it’s about. Every summer on Mondello Beach in Palermo, more than a thousand cabins are erected to house the same number of groups of bathers who will spend the season in them. For these people the “huts” are the perfect setting in which to hide behind the memory of a social status that the crisis of recent years has undermined. A family gets into debt to go on a seaside vacation and to look well-off among the bathers, three women sunbathe in order to feel as if they are still young and to become the stars of the summer, while on the same beach a barman thinks about earning as much money as possible to get through the winter. Everyone is waiting for the night of August 15 to play a leading role in the summer Vanity Fair and to keep on pretending that the economic crisis doesn’t exist.

How it landed. With an audience score of 5.4/10, Happy Winter has proved divisive with audiences.

Where to watch. Streaming options change often. See the full, country-by-country breakdown on our where to watch Happy Winter page.

If you liked it. Fans of Happy Winter tend to enjoy One Direction: This Is Us, Burn the Stage: The Movie, BTS World Tour: Love Yourself - Japan Edition and Senna.