Welcome to the South

Alberto Colombo runs a post office in a small town in Brianza, in northern Italy, and has his sights set on a transfer to Milan. Under pressure from his wife Silvia, he pretends to be disabled in order to improve his position in the transfer rankings. The deception is discovered, and instead of a promotion he is punished with a posting to a village in Campania, near Naples. For a northern Italian with firm prejudices about the south, the move looks like a disaster.

Luca Miniero directed this 2010 Italian-German comedy, the first film in his directing career, from a screenplay by Massimo Gaudioso. Claudio Bisio plays Alberto, with Alessandro Siani as the postman Mattia Volpe, Angela Finocchiaro as Silvia and Valentina Lodovini, Nando Paone and Riccardo Zinna in supporting roles. The film was made for around four million dollars and took roughly sixty-six million worldwide, a return that made it one of the most successful Italian releases of its year.

Audiences have received it positively but not without reservations: on IMDb it holds 6.6 out of 10 from about eleven thousand votes, and on TMDB 6.7 out of 10 from roughly nineteen hundred. Miniero later returned to the same territory with Bentornati al Sud in 2026.