Director: Claudio Giovannesi
Set amid the rubble of post-liberation Naples, Hey Joe follows an American sailor whose wartime romance leaves lasting consequences for the family he leaves behind.
What is Hey Joe about?
The film follows Dean Barry, a twenty-three-year-old American sailor stationed in Naples in 1944, in the aftermath of Italy's liberation from occupation. Amid a city still marked by bombing, Dean falls deeply for Lucia, a young woman living in poverty. When his tour of duty ends two years later, Dean returns home to New Jersey, leaving Lucia behind in Naples — pregnant and on her own. Hey Joe traces the emotional fallout of that separation and how a wartime relationship reshapes lives on both sides of the Atlantic long after the fighting has stopped.
Cast & crew
James Franco stars alongside Francesco Di Napoli, Giulia Ercolini, Aniello Arena, Francesca Montuori, Giada Savi and Samuel Wilberding, with the Naples-set cast anchoring the film's postwar Italian setting.
Context & significance
Directed by Claudio Giovannesi, Hey Joe is an Italian drama that revisits the years immediately after World War Two, when American servicemen and Italian civilians were thrown together under difficult, often unequal circumstances. Running 117 minutes, the film uses the port city of Naples as both backdrop and character, tracking how personal choices made during wartime echo for decades afterward. Giovannesi, who has previously examined working-class Naples on screen, keeps the focus intimate rather than sweeping, letting small domestic details carry the weight of a much larger historical rupture between two countries.
Where & how to watch
Hey Joe is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, so viewers can choose either the dubbed track or read along in Farsi. This page is free to browse; watching the film itself requires a free K-Time account, which also unlocks the wider Persian-language catalog and cross-device continue-watching.