A Girl at the Window

Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to choose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.

Valeria is 17 and pregnant. She lives in Puerto Vallarta with Clara, her half sister. Valeria has not wanted her long-absent mother, April, to find out about her pregnancy, but due to the economic strain and the overwhelming responsibility of having a baby in the house, Clara decides to call their mother. April arrives, willing to her daughters, but we soon understand why Valeria had wanted her to stay away.

Fifteen-year-old Cobain tries to get his pregnant mother Mia to quit her self-destructive lifestyle. When she refuses to clean up her act, Cobain takes over.

An idyllic voyage to Tahiti in 1789 turns a crew aboard the H.M.S. Bounty against its captain when they find a tropical paradise.

Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia, from 13 to 18 years old, sent from Beirut to her best friend who left for Paris to escape the civil war. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.

Paul, a rich English boy, and Michelle, an orphaned French girl, run away from home to a remote beach. Living on their own, their friendship grows into love.

A peculiar neighbor offers hope to a recent widow who is struggling to raise a teenager who is unpredictable and, sometimes, violent.

After being dumped by her lover, Pepa finds her life and the lives of those around her spiraling out of control in a deliciously chaotic series of events.

In late 1940s Los Angeles, Easy Rawlins is an unemployed black World War II veteran with few job prospects. At a bar, Easy meets DeWitt Albright, a mysterious white man looking for someone to investigate the disappearance of a missing white woman named Daphne Monet, who he suspects is hiding out in one of the city's black jazz clubs. Strapped for money and facing house payments, Easy takes the job, but soon finds himself in over his head.

Best friends Deco and Naldinho co-own a cargo boat in Brazil's Salvador da Bahia. They give a ride to a sultry prostitute named Karinna, and soon both men fall prey to her considerable sexual charms, pushing the bounds of their friendship to the limit.

A married couple, unable to conceive, search for a male donor, but jealousy creates problems when the husband spies on his wife while posing as her brother.

A man is reluctant to tell his fiancee that his parents, uncle and brother are dwarfs.

Jorge feels suffocated by his menial job but can't break free of the obligations that keep him stuck — until he meets a woman who shakes his life up.

16-year-old Ina is in love for the first time; her boyfriend is 17-year-old Christoph. Their role models in terms of relationships are the very emotional Helen and the self-confident Markus. Then Helen says that she is very likely pregnant, and Ina becomes concerned.

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.

A recently released prisoner reunites his criminal colleagues to pull off one last heist.

José Luis has a cushy corporate job at the lingerie factory his mom owns. After he falls in love and proposes to Silvia, a beautiful laborer on the underwear assembly line, his mom enlists Raul, a potential underwear model and would-be bullfighter, to seduce Silvia.

Suddenly alone during the late stages of her pregnancy, Sara receives an unexpected lifeline when Linda, her estranged older sister, arrives.

Novalee Nation is a 17-year-old Tennessee transient who has to grow up in a hurry when she's left pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend on a roadside, and takes refuge in the friendly aisles of Wal-Mart. Eventually, some eccentric but kindly strangers 'adopt' Novalee and her infant daughter, helping them buck the odds and build a new life.

The unborn child of Mamlakat is telling her story. She is 17, beautiful and vivacious, and dreaming secretly of becoming an actress. She lives with her father and brother in a small village in Central Asia. One night she is seduced by an actor from a travelling troupe, who poses as a friend of Tom Cruise, and gets her pregnant. She tries to abort, but her father and brother become determined to find the seducer, setting in motion a cascade of comic adventures.