Mediterraneo

Mediterraneo is a 1991 Italian film that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1991. The film is set during World War II, and regards a group of Italian soldiers who become stranded on a Greek island and are left behind by the war. The filming took place on the Greek island of Kastellrizo, in the Dodecanese island complex.

The soldiers anticipate attack from outside and on the island and take all sorts of inept precautions. They find a small town with no people. They see bombing on the horizon and realize that the ship that would pick them up has been destroyed. Then mysteriously, people reappear in the village the villagers say they hid because the Germans had taken all the men. They have decided to accommodate the Italians. It isnt long before everyones sunny nature appears. The Italian soldiers are absorbed into the life, heat and landscape of the idyllic island.The local orthodox priest asks the lieutenant, a Sunday painter, to restore the murals in his church. Two soldiers, who are brothers, befriend a lovely young woman, a shepherdess. The sergeant takes up folk dancing and the shyest of the soldiers falls profoundly in love with the islands single, very overworked prostitute, named Vassilissa. ........

Source: Wikipedia