Via Dell’Amore
A travel romantic comedy about a buttoned-up Manhattan hedge fund manager, a spirited Italian woman, a broken bicycle, and the Tuscan road that changes everything.
After the loss of his father, a buttoned-up Manhattan hedge fund manager reluctantly returns to his family roots to ride in an antique bike race across Tuscany. When his bicycle and belongings are stolen, he must reach the finish line on a beat-up tandem with a spunky Italian street girl he hires to ride on the back, and in the process discovers the love and joy his life was missing.
Synopsis
Boy meets girl, sidewaysVia Dell’Amore is not the usual boy-meets-girl story. Nando, escaping his stifling life in New York, agrees to complete a Tuscan bike race his favorite uncle Aldo entered before suffering a heart attack. The deeper prize is to find Aldo’s true love, Maria, who mysteriously vanished decades earlier.
A series of inspired disasters leaves Nando stranded in the Tuscan countryside: bikeless, penniless, phoneless, and hopeless, until the Nuns of St. Rocco gift him an old tandem bicycle. Struggling to pedal it alone, he comes across a roundabout with a particularly attractive option.
The race becomes a journey back to joy, family, romance, and the life Nando abandoned.
The Characters
Romance, conflict, comedyNando
The only son of Joe and Tina and Aldo’s only nephew. Smart, handsome, and athletic, he once adored his Uncle Aldo’s Italian-flavored escapades, especially bicycles. After his father dies while Nando is away on a bike trip with Aldo, Nando blames himself and shuts out everything Italian until Tuscany forces him open again.
Angelica
A no-nonsense independent woman-girl-tomboy. Abuse forced her from home early, and she survived with her looks, wit, and street smarts under the control of Matteo. She joins Nando for the promise of passage to America and slowly reveals the vulnerable side she rarely shows.
Uncle Aldo
Nando’s beloved uncle represents a return to life, love, and laughter. Aldo begins Nando’s quest while carrying his own unresolved heartbreak and his hope of finding a lost love from many years before.
Matteo
Angelica’s controlling protector turned pimp, and the ruthless thug who steals Nando’s rental car and belongings. He chases Nando and Angelica across Tuscany to get Angelica back.
Angelica
Streetwise, fearless, funny, and harder to read than Nando expects.
Nando
A successful man who has mistaken control for happiness.
The Nuns of St. Rocco follow Nando’s journey, weaving in and out of the story at the most opportune and inopportune times. They serve as comic figures, metaphors for the story’s lessons, and often the answer when Nando has nowhere else to turn.
Not subtle. Very useful.
The Set Up
Brooklyn to TuscanyWe meet Nando as a boy in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood of first-generation Italian-Americans trying to work their way up. His father wants him to buckle down and make something of himself, while Uncle Aldo encourages passion over responsibility. Aldo gives Nando an Italian race bike and asks him to ride La Dolce Vita in Tuscany before college.
While Nando is away riding with Aldo, tragedy strikes. His father dies in a freak accident. Nando returns home, vows never to ride again, and blames himself. Fifteen years later, he is successful, engaged, and empty. When Aldo has a heart attack before returning to Italy to find Maria, Nando goes in his place, secretly hoping to finish what he started as a teen.
Then Italy immediately dismantles his plan. His bicycle, belongings, and communication are stolen. The nuns provide a tandem. The only problem is that he cannot ride a bicycle built for two by himself.
Optimistic and inspirational: even after heartbreak, a person can find new happiness and growth.
Dreamy and escapist: an idyllic Italian setting with the feel of old Italian romantic films.
Transformational: Nando’s return to who he was before tragedy becomes the metaphor for rediscovering his authentic self.
Romantic and affectionate: filled with warmth, family, and the emotional force of the journey.
Celebratory: a celebration of life, resilience, family, Italian culture, Italian-American culture, and pure romance.
Joy can be found in unexpected detours.
A Guide to the Story
Six movements
The Opening
Nando begins as a joyful boy shaped by Aldo’s love of life and bicycles. After his father dies while Nando is away riding with Aldo, he closes himself off from everything that made him alive. Fifteen years later, Aldo’s heart attack and a mysterious letter about Maria send him toward the life he abandoned.
The Deal
Stranded in the Tuscan countryside, Nando receives a tandem from the Nuns of St. Rocco and finds Angelica at a roundabout. She agrees to ride in exchange for passage to America. Neither trusts the other. The journey begins anyway.
Love Happens Along the Way
Nando teaches Angelica to ride. Angelica teaches him how to survive, laugh, and live again. The nuns appear at improbable moments, comic and wise. The man who swore off passion begins falling for a woman he never imagined.
All Is Lost
Near the finish line, the tandem crashes and is destroyed. Nando believes Angelica betrayed him. In truth, she was hustling to earn money to fix the bike. His pride wins over his heart, and she walks.
The Finish Line
Nando realizes what he has thrown away, goes after Angelica, defeats Matteo, and reaches Maria, only to discover she became a nun decades ago. Far from a disappointment, it becomes the most romantic revelation in the film.
The Aftermath
Aldo arrives at the finish line to find Maria. Nando crosses on the tandem with Angelica, his true love and his Via Dell’Amore. In a joyful Brooklyn epilogue, both couples celebrate, and the world of the film is healed.
Gilda Hauser Porcari
Screenwriter and voice actor.
Gilda Hauser Porcari grew up around storytellers. She used her sense of humor first as a stand-up comedian and TV writer in the 1990s, then later returned to screenplays and TV pilots.
She was the winner of the 2024 ScreenCraft Comedy Competition Mentorship Award, mentored by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, and has also won Chicago Screenplay awards, been a semi-finalist at Austin Film Festival and Page Awards, and is a Stowe Story Labs 2026 fellow.
Via Dell’Amore is inspired by Gilda’s many trips bike riding across Tuscany and her love for her husband’s close-knit Italian family.
E: gilda@gildavoice.com · P: 754-216-3621