In Italy, couples prepare for their imminent weddings. The bureaucratic State and the dogmatic Church oversee the nuptials. Municipal employees listen to couples’ statements and intentions. A provincial priest delivers a matrimonial lesson: speaking of faith and science, spirituality, and sexuality.

Massimo D’Anolfi and Martina Parenti started a decade-long collaboration in nonfiction filmmaking with this magnanimous look at marriage and its administrative and religious scaffolding. Against paperwork and sermons emerges a mosaic of affectionate, gently humorous portraits of couples in love.