Production
A couple of bourgeois intellectuals, Carlo and Silvia, have been married for twenty years. While she lives in their flat in Rome, he spends most of his time in the country house where he writes his books, openly living with his younger lover, Lù. In return, Carlo has long accepted that her wife may have lovers, but her volatile relationship with a young neo-fascist suddenly rekindles his jealousy.
Dumped by his girlfriend because he's too short, Ruggero keeps calling her, but the answer is always the same: "Anna is asleep right now". Thus begins his surreal odyssey to win her back.
In a small mountain village lives a man with a challenging name, Giuseppe Garibaldi (one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland"), but everybody call him with the nickname Peppino. Love fishing, the company of friends, the library where he works as a precarious employee. He is an optimistic person even if his child accuse him of being a wannabe. One day, due to a mess of politicians, an amazing thing happens: Peppino is mistakenly elected President of the Italian Republic. Pulled out from his quiet life, is to play a role for which he knows he is obviously inappropriate, but his common sense and his instinctive gestures are incredibly effective, except for the etiquette, for which he is in trouble. The inflexible and fascinating Deputy Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, Janis Clementi, is anxious to no avail in an attempt to regulate the unpredictable actions of the President...
The movie tells the little stories of a group of families who live in the same building in Rome as seen from the eyes of Sandrino, a little kid who is awaiting for a total eclipse of the sun, that really happened during summer of '61, and it was was fully visible from Italy. He sees his family life, a young girl who is about to marry a man she doesn't love, an old man who has just died and whose relatives fight for his inheritance, a blind trumpet player who hopes to recover, his little friends...
Rome, Esquilino, summer. Rossella returns to Rome after years of absence and returns to her home, rented to her friend Salvatore, the set designer. The woman is gripped by an evident depression and wanders around the city that she does not recognize and that no longer recognizes her. People have changed and Rossella finds no one capable of answering the obsessive question that has plagued her for some time: "How can I disappear?"
Four waiters and a cook working at a seaside restaurant hate one another but still keep working together for lack of better opportunities.
Upon his release from prison, an ex-convict returns to his beloved city of Genoa, and to his lover.
This is the story of Rosario and Matteo, two man from Southern Italy. Rosario is helped by Luigi to settle in the north. Luigi wants to give Rosario a chance to redeem himself and offer him, at the same time, an opportunity to confront his beliefs with the ones of his son Matteo. Rosario lives in a "commune" and Matteo in a beautiful, comfortable house. They're both introverted and shy and find a common ground: they meet, go out together, become friends and show each other a completely different way of living their lives as teenagers.
On 8 August 1991, an Albanian ship carrying 20,000 people reached the port of Bari. The ship was called the “Vlora”. Mooring was difficult, and some of the passengers jumped overboard to swim to land, while many others chanted “Italia, Italia”, making the victory sign. On 7 August 1991, the ship, returning from Cuba, the “Vlora” had arrived at the port of Durrës with 10,000 tons of sugar in its hold. Work on unloading the sugar was underway when an enormous throng of thousands of people suddenly assailed the ship, forcing the captain to head for Italy. The next morning, waiting for the “Vlora” was an incredulous and stunned city and an empty football stadium where the Albanians were held before being sent back home. Twenty-one years have passed since that day. Most of the people who boarded that ship were sent back to Albania, but the crossings continued and many of them had another go. Today, 4.5 million foreigners live in Italy.
