The film follows Nello, the recently hired director of a newly developed work cooperative of former mental patients. After the closure of state psychiatric hospitals and asylums in Italy under the Basaglia Law many former patients were left with few resources and little hope of reintegrating into society. With the intention of actually improving the lives of his pupils, rather than just sedating them, Nello encourages them to expand their individual abilities and explore the wider world around them although, regardless of intention, there is sometimes a price to pushing boundaries too quickly.
The work-shy, lazy Germanicus is taken to Rome by slave traders and sold straight to the nouveau riche Roman Tusnelda. He manages to escape, but only to end up in the next misery as a taster at the imperial court. When the emperor dies, he is arrested as an emperor's assassin and is to be thrown to the tigers in the arena.With the help of the black slave Saba, he manages to win the deadly fight and is proclaimed - against his will - the new emperor of the Roman Empire.His pragmatic ideas as a statesman explain why the Roman Empire ended so abruptly. At the side of Saba, who is elevated to empress, he returns to his home village of Sumpfing, where he now promises himself completely new perspectives ...
The lovely Hermia is to wed Demetrius, but she truly cares for Lysander. Hermia's friend, Helena, is in love with Demetrius, while other romantic entanglements abound in the woods, with married fairy rulers Titania and Oberon toying with various lovers and each other.
Marquise is a drama about the rise and fall of a beauteous actress. As cheerfully portrayed by Sophie Marceau, the eponymous heroine is an engagingly ribald, but perhaps rather too modern, character. She rises from an impoverished background to become a favourite of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and the mistress of the celebrated Racine, who wrote roles especially for her; but her fate, in the end, is a tragic one.
Roseanna is dying of a heart condition, and all she wants is to be buried next to her daughter, in a cemetery that is getting full fast. The cemetery can't expand because Capestro, the man who owns the land next to the cemetery, won't sell. While Marcello is doing good deeds to make sure no one dies, Roseanna thinks of Marcello's future.
The adventures and deceptions of a photographer who travels through small villages of 1950s Sicily pretending to work for the big film studios in Rome.
In 1838 in the kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicilies, Malacarne, gamekeeper of Baron San Germano, kills the bandit Caruso, whose widow gives birth to Giovanni and at the same time becomes the nurse of Costanza, San Germano’s orphaned daughter. Thirteen years later, Giovanni and Costanza fall in love to the jealousy of her uncle, who shuts her in a convent, ordering Giovanni to be killed by Malacarne who has meanwhile become a bandit. Barely alive, Giovanni is taken away by Bourbon soldiers. After Garibaldi’s arrival in Sicily and its union with Italy, Costanza is freed from the convent and returns to San Germano. She is visited by Giovanni and although still loves him, rejects him since she wishes to become a nun. In the meantime, Giovanni kills Malacarne and takes his place. Costanza marries the rich Lo Turco and the next day departs for Naples, but during the journey the carriage is attacked by Giovanni’s band. Costanza flees with him and they leave for America.
Misery money-lender Arpagone is looking to arrange three weddings simultaneously - to cut down on costs. One for himself and the others for his two children. Of course he doesn't approve of the choices his son and daughter have made and conspires to arrange more well to do spouses against their will. However, fate will prove itself to be on the side of true love, not of the greedy.