Lorenzo Alessandri

A psychoanalyst and his family go through profound emotional trauma when their son dies in a scuba diving accident.

Nanni Moretti recounts in his diary three slice-of-life stories marked by a dry, ironic gaze: in the first, he rides his Vespa through a deserted, sun-drenched summertime Rome; in the second, he visits a reclusive friend on an island, who ropes him into an impromptu journey between islets in search of quiet; and in the last, he finds himself grappling with an unknown illness.

In a high school in the outskirts of Rome, it's the last day before the summer holidays. A literature teacher reminisces the past year and wonders what will become of the students he cared for as if they were his children.

Professor Lipari teaches in a public school and is in a full-on existential crisis. He has no faith in himself and in the possibility of changing the world for the better. At school, a former student of his who is also a teacher will change his attitude.

Four stories about phobias, manias and other complexes.

Giulio is a widower, struggling to raise three sons, Marco, Rudi, and Mimmo, as best he can. He lives in Rome's working-class Garbatella neighborhood and runs a wine shop with his two brothers. Lucia, meanwhile, comes from Milan's middle-class background; she's divorced and trying to rebuild her life with her two daughters, Eva and Alice. The two meet by chance and recognize each other: they had a fling as teenagers, many years earlier. Yet first love is never forgotten, and so Giulio and Lucia find themselves together again. Their meeting, however, changes not only the lives of a man and a woman, but also those of two families as different as could be. Two families who find themselves living under the same roof without even having had the time to get to know each other well.

The story of Romulus and his twin brother Remus, in eighth century B.C. as seen through the eyes of three people marked by death, loneliness and violence.

During World War II, 22-year-old Carabinieri deputy brigadier Salvo D'Acquisto makes an heroic gesture of self-sacrifice by "confessing" an act of sabotage for which 22 civilians had been rounded up by the Germans, and is executed by firing squad in their place on September 23, 1943.