Four tales unfold in the Eternal City: While vacationing in Rome, architect John encounters a young man whose romantic woes remind him of a painful incident from his own youth; retired opera director Jerry discovers a mortician with an amazing voice, and he seizes the opportunity to rejuvenate his own flagging career; a young couple have separate romantic interludes; a spotlight shines on an ordinary man.
Giuseppe Tornatore traces three generations of a Sicilian family in in the Sicilian town of Bagheria (known as Baarìa in the local Sicilian dialect), from the 1930s to the 1980s, to tell the story of the loves, dreams and delusions of an unusual community.
Serena Bruno is an architect who studied and got several masters in different countries of the world but she decides to go back to Italy so she can live and work there. She will soon find out that her native country is not as open minded and she will struggle to find a job that she truly loves and is passionate about. Along the way she will meet Francesco a gay man who will help and support her throughout her journey.
During a sunny Sicilian summer Tanino has a sweet and tender story with Sally, a young American tourist. But when summer is over, Sally flies back to the States forgetting Tanino and her camera. He instead cannot forget the girl and he decides to go to the States with the excuse of bringing back her the camera and to see the dreamland of any Sicilian. Tanino will discover that dreams don't always match with reality...
Nothing - not her father, not the church - can stop unruly Angela from being with her childhood best friend turned great love, Sara. Based on a true story, Viola di Mare, presents a uniquely engaging portrait of family, community and gender roles in a 19th century Italian village.
Prevented from using mobile phones due to the non-existent reception of the location, a school trip to a rural town becomes a life-changing experience of friendship and love for a group of Italian kids and their teacher.
When her social-climbing father is relocated from small-town North to his native Rome, 12-year-old Caterina enrolls to his old school, finding herself at sea with an environment where students sort themselves by social class and their parents' political affiliation.
In 1990s Palermo, Pino Puglisi is a priest from the neglected Brancaccio neighborhood dedicated in helping kids to get off the streets and creating an embracing place of hope and solidarity in his church, which means trouble for the local Mafia. He continues his solitary fight until the bitter end.
