Echec & Mat

When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.

A few minutes in the life of two people: a young woman who has her whole life in front of her and an old man ill with asthma who has only one more night to live.

An elderly bachelor, feeling nostalgic for his youth, seeks out his late sweetheart's teenage daughter, now an orphan forced to attend a strict boarding school.

Locked in a high-tech English manor, bound in a deadly duel of wits, Andrew Wyke and Milo Tindle come together as English gentlemen to discuss the matter of Wyke's wife: the woman both are sleeping with.

A story of the friendship between an elderly Jewish man and a young African-American boy set during the Vietnam War.

Viejos Malditos is a sharp drama with a touch of dark humor that introduces us to Elías, a recently widowed, gruff, and ill-tempered old man who thought life couldn’t get any worse... until the cat arrived. Sick, exhausted, and stuck in his worst streak, Elías must not only cope with his inevitable decline but also with a scruffy, noisy feline that has decided to turn his nights—and those of the entire neighborhood—into a hellish concert of meows.

Disgruntled Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski sets out to reform his neighbor, Thao Lor, a Hmong teenager who tried to steal Kowalski's prized possession: a 1972 Gran Torino.

A lonely old man neglected by his family stumbles upon a teenage girl who thinks he may need help. A warm friendship they develop makes his last days the best he ever had.

Overburdened and stuck in a greying marriage, Giovanna takes to caring for a Jewish Holocaust survivor her husband brings home. As she begins to reflect on her life, she turns to the man who lives across from her.

A young man confronts himself at 80.

Juliet, a beautiful doctor, has found the perfect New York apartment to start a new life after separating from her husband. It's got spacious rooms, a spectacular view, and a handy, handsome landlord. But there are secrets behind every wall and terror in every room as Juliet gets the unnerving feeling that she is not alone.

A routine trick propels a tall, dark, cynical hustler into a series of life-changing encounters in this drama. But this amicable and sexually efficient rent boy begins to look at himself differently when he finds himself lost in a maze-like apartment building. As he wanders through the building, he tricks with a variety of johns; sex is the commonality, but out of that commodity comes raw, unguarded emotions for all.

Hélène, 40 years old, comes to visit her aging mother in the French countryside. But her mother isn't being her usual self. She seems to have formed a strange bond with the plants, insects, and the old oak tree at the end of her garden...

Michele is a Communist MP who loses his memory in a car crash—although nobody seems to notice. Over the course of a water polo match ahead of election day, he begins to remember his past life, revealing the picture of a man whose personal and political identity crisis mirrors the one of Italian communism.

An old shepherd lives his last days in a quiet medieval village perched high on the hills of Calabria, at the southernmost tip of Italy. He herds goats under skies that most villagers have deserted long ago. He is sick, and believes to find his medicine in the dust he collects on the church floor, which he drinks in his water every day.

A simple, domestic love story about a man who takes his skin off for his girlfriend, and why it probably wasn't the best idea...

Sailors want to remain in their small world, which is warm and cozy and full of lies, but their routine life turns upside down when one of them gets mugged and badly beaten.

In a curious-looking old hospital, an elderly couple, Carlo and Clara, is waiting for their turn tenderly holding hands. There is a choice to be made, and the woman begins to hesitate. Only the words of the loving Carlo will be able to transform fear into courage. At one point the setting makes way for animation, suggested and overlapped by the words of Clara. It leads the listener to a deep reflection on life. The brief evocation of the magic of existence is imprinted in the deeply moved smile of the woman, certain that life on Earth is nothing but a stage of eternity.

In a village affected by climate change and scanty rainfall, a blind farmer strikes a deal with the debt recovery agent to save his son from a debt trap.

Clemente, a moneylender of few words, is a new hope for Sofía, his single neighbor, devoted to the October worship of Our Lord of the Miracles. They're brought together over a new-born baby, fruit of Clemente's relationship with a prostitute who's nowhere to be found. While Clemente is looking for the girl's mother, Sofía cares for the baby and looks after the moneylender's house. With the arrival of these beings in his life, Clemente has the opportunity to reconsider his emotional relations with people