After killing a prison guard, convict Robert Stroud faces life imprisonment in solitary confinement. Driven nearly mad by loneliness and despair, Stroud's life gains new meaning when he happens upon a helpless baby sparrow in the exercise yard and nurses it back to health. Despite having only a third grade education, Stroud goes on to become a renowned ornithologist and achieves a greater sense of freedom and purpose behind bars than most people find in the outside world.
Matilda Wormwood is an brilliant and intelligent little girl. Unfortunately, her parents, Harry and Zinnia, fail to see that fact. As time passes, she finally starts school and has a kind teacher, loyal friends, and a terrifying, sadistic headmistress. As she becomes fed up with the constant cruelty, she discovers she has a special gift that she just might be able to use to outwit the unruly adults around her.
Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.
Andrew returns to his hometown for his mother’s funeral, a journey that reconnects him with old friends. The trip coincides with his decision to stop taking his powerful antidepressants. A chance meeting with Sam—a girl also struggling with various maladies—opens up the possibility of rekindling emotional connections, confronting his psychologist father, and perhaps beginning a new life.
Past/present story of a young man who lives in a fantasy world of aeronautics to escape a more challenging reality.
During the flight, the hero of the film, the boxing champion, recalls his life's journey. The hero’s childhood was in the first post-war years. He grew up without a father, his mother was busy with work, his older brother was in prison, the relationship with the new stepfather did not work out, and the boy was brought up on the street. There he learned to fight, and this led him to the boxing ring. Over time, the stubborn street boy became the champion of Europe.
The lives of a motherless young man, who's just starting to find interest in women, and his physically abused, poverty stricken friend, are mixed with more or less innocent childhood experiences and challenges most their age experience.
5 years old Yang spends an afternoon with his mother on a shopping trip. When he throws a tantrum after feeling neglected, she decides to punish him by walking away. A seemingly harmless punishment eventually becomes a pivotal childhood experience for Yang that will forever change him.
A socially awkward veterinary assistant with a lazy eye and obsession with perfection descends into depravity after developing a crush on a boy with perfect hands.
A bitter coming-of-age story about boy who grows up in a remote Bosnian village shortly after World War II.
Impoverished priest Harihar Ray, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work. Alone, his wife, Sarbojaya, looks after her rebellious daughter, Durga, and her young son, Apu, as well as Harihar's elderly aunt Indir. The children enjoy the small pleasures of their difficult life, while their parents suffer the daily indignities heaped upon them.
When suspicious bruising is found on Lisa's son, Bobby, she is forced to confront her own childhood trauma to prevent him from being taken by a well-meaning social worker.
A look at the trials and tribulations of school and childhood.
In a post-WWII Yugoslavia still under Stalinist rule in the 1950s, six-year-old Malik is oblivious as to why his father, Mehmed, has suddenly disappeared. In truth, Mehmed has been sent to a labor camp as punishment for acts of sexual indiscretion involving young girls. Malik's mother, Senija, however, has no answers, and the family must cope in the father's absence.
Franz Holl, 6 years old, is sent off by his mother and stepfather to live on his father's farm. His father turns out to be a mischievous man who won't grant him any chance in life. The roles are played by amateur actors from Carinthia.
Božidarka Frajt (playing herself) is an actress who is unsuccessfully looking for a job in Zagreb. The film follows her everyday life: she spends time with her friends and colleagues, shoots a television commercial, goes to a party, remembers her difficult childhood as a war orphan, and contemplates her professional and personal failures. Finally, she visits theatre manager Vjeran Zuppa in his office and asks for a job.
Lily has saved up a large sum of money to fulfill her dream of studying acting at an American university. On the day she receives confirmation that she has been accepted, her dysfunctional mother returns to Lily's life and tells her that she has a huge debt that needs to be paid off immediately. In one day, Lily tries to find a way to help her mother without using her savings. Lily is faced with the choice of buying her future and remaining a bad daughter, or letting it go, bending to the needs of others.
When 12-year-old Elsi Björkman and her mother Paula return from a week's holiday abroad, Elsi immediately notices that someone has been in her room. She tells her mother about it, but she does not believe her. At the local supermarket Elsi meets Henry, who seems to spend his time returning shopping trolleys. Elsi does not know anything about the boy, who has an irritating habit of appearing from out of nowhere, only to disappear again, as if into thin air. Nevertheless, the children become friends.
Eleven-year-old Steve is the smallest boy in class. He thinks girls are soppy, detests football and prefers painting. To alleviate his loneliness, he occasionally escapes into an excitingly violent fantasy realm of his own creation. His best mate Stuart is the only solid thing in a comfortless world where people argue too much… usually about Steve.
Forcibly separated from her twin brother when they are orphaned, a melancholic misfit learns how to find confidence within herself amid the clutter of misfortunes and everyday life.