The recently released Lost in Florence is a movie about a young American man who, like the city’s greatest poet, recognizes that he has fallen off the straight path and, now lost, must find his way again. Heartbroken and healing from an injury that derailed his professional football career, Eric (Brett Dalton) meets a beautiful Italian architect (Alessandra Mastronardi) and joins a local team in the incredibly brutal Florentine sport calcio storico.

In a sense, Lost in Florence is a retelling of a central American story—a pilgrimage to the old world in search of the authentic self. It’s also a beautiful tribute to the capital of the Italian renaissance made by writer and director Evan Oppenheimer, whose own Italian days served as something of a model for his movie’s protagonist. Oppenheimer and I were once neighbors in Brooklyn, N.Y., where we played on a local club representing the neighborhood in the most American of sports, baseball. I spoke with him recently about his latest movie, the city where he filmed it, and the gifts of Florence, including calcio storico.