Massimo Dapporto

The son of a Sardinian shepherd, Sebastiano Catte is a gentle and studious young man. At his mother’s urging, who dreams of seeing him become a doctor or a lawyer, he left his village to attend boarding school. In 1950, he suddenly returns home following the murder of his father.

June 1944. In the newly liberated Rome, Roberto Rossellini and Sergio Amidei decide, against all odds, to make an unprecedented, true-to-life film on the tragic events that occurred during the Nazi occupation: Rome, Open City .

Formal portraits, bookends in this 80-year saga, enclose the central story, which opens with the baptism of Carlo, a baby in his grandfather's lap, and ends with Carlo as a grandfather with a baby in his arms. And never once do we get out of the house, whose rooms provide structure. Comfort or passion? Carlo can't really decide until it's too late.

As a young boy, future emperor Nero witnesses the mad Emperor Caligula kill his father and exile his mother. While in exile in the pontine islands, Agrippina, his mother, sees a vision telling her that her son can become emperor, but she will have to die first. She accepts the proposal. Back in Rome, Nero, now being raised by emperor Claudius after Caligula's death, Agrippina returns. She poisons Claudius' food and Nero becomes emperor. At first, Nero cuts taxes and introduces successful programs and invades Brittania. Soon he meets a beautiful slave named Claudia Acte, and marries her, throwing off his engagement with Claudius' daughter, Claudia Octavia, telling her she can marry someone she will be happy with. Heartbroken, she arrives at an island and kills herself. Nero enjoys being married to Claudia Acte, but soon he gradually goes mad with power and sets fire to Rome.

Buenos Aires, 1955. One of a family of Sicilian immigrants, the adolescent Laura is on the threshold of adulthood. Her father Francesco Lojacono, is a humble tailor whose relationship with his daughter is one of extreme conflict. As Laura becomes increasingly emancipated in Argentinian (and therefore American) fashion, her father feels personally betrayed.

A young recruit to the Italian army discovers and rejects the seedy world of soldiers who prostitute themselves to supplement their income. But before leaving this world he is raped by a highly-respected senior officer and must decide whether to risk bringing proceedings against him.

A boy who operates a ham radio and a man who works at a satellite relay station witness the same murder thousands of miles apart and have to figure out how to warn the next potential victim.

Neapolitan Vincenzo LoRusso lives of expedients in Rome, as he tries to sell at an intersection a faux suede jacket, accidentally meets Laura, a beautiful woman who invites him to her house.