The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.
Two college roommates have 24 hours to make the ultimate choice as they finalize arrangements for a black market abortion.
Johan and his family are Mennonites from the north of Mexico. Against the law of God and Man, Johan falls in love with another woman.
In 1983 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.
New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg makes exit arrangements for Pran and his family. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story — a decision he may regret as the Khmer Rouge rebels move in.
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
In 1981 in Medjugorje (BA), a group of kids claim that Virgin Mary appeared to them on a hill. The local priest believes them and spreads the word. Religious tourism blossoms. The communist government is concerned and arrests the priest.
Belgrade in 1963. In a yard surrounded by buildings, a group of young people of different backgrounds and social status, but of similar views about love and self-affirmation, spend their time together. Their friendship is dyed with various events typical for socialism, such as working actions or Youth Day's parade. All what happens within this yard may become an allegory of one generation's destiny.
A high school graduate, Yusuf could not pass the university entrance exam. Writing poetry is his greatest passion and some of his poems are being printed in various obscure literary journals. But neither these poems, nor the rapidly falling price of the milk they sell, are being of any benefit to Yusuf and Zehra's lives. When Yusuf finds out about Zehra's secret affair with the town's stationmaster he gets disconcerted. Will he find the way to cope with his anxiety for the unknown future, the rapid change that he is going through and the pain of taking a step into adulthood and leaving his youth behind
Die Scheinheiligen
Set in 1979, following a young Communist man's relationship with a gay Catholic writer, exploring tolerance, inclusion, homophobia and challenging its Cuban audience with great humour. Based on the short story by Cuban writer Senel Paz.
Based on the true story of a Russian serial killer who, over many years, claimed victim to over 50 people. His victims were mostly under the age of 17. In what was then a communists state, the police investigations were hampered by bureaucracy, incompetence and those in power. The story is told from the viewpoint of the detective in charge of the case.
War arrives to a small secluded village in Vojvodina. The Germans take a group of hostages through the village and on their way molest a small boy. As revenge, the boy sets the German corn on fire. An intelligent and shrewd Gestapo officer Šicer arrives to investigate. He does not even suspect that he is up against a group of small boys, led by Milan and Vaso, and orders that all men from the village be taken to custody. He announces that one man will be shot each day unless the real culprit steps forward. Children contact the partisans.
The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth.
Idealistic young man supports the party and the new Yugoslavia's communist regime, but soon gets involved in various political and criminal machinations becoming more and more confused about what's right and what's wrong.
Accio and Manrico are siblings from a working-class family in 1960s Italy: older Manrico is handsome, charismatic, and loved by all, while younger Accio is sulky, hot-headed, and treats life as a battleground — much to his parents' chagrin. After the former is drawn into left-wing politics, Accio joins the fascists out of spite, but his flimsy beliefs are put to test when he falls for Manrico's like-minded girlfriend.
Now Brunhild knows by which treason she was won for king Gunther of Burgund by Siegfried of Xanthen, and has been revenged by his foul murder by Hagen, more bloody revenge is inevitable. Hagen steals the Nibelungen-treasure to sink it in the stream and manages to kill Alberich and seize his invisibility-cap. Queen Kriemhild is packed of to an abbey so her son may grow up to become a prelate, but Hagen's men raid them and kill the child. She now accepts to become the wife of Etzel, king of the truly barbaric Hun nomads and invites the Burgund court nomenclature at their Danube court for their heir's baptism a few years later, but prepared a bloody conspiracy with her xenophobic brother-in-law behind her surprisingly chivalric husband's back, while Gunther accepts, hoping to avoid a far bloodier war, despite the danger for his party of knights, which materializes...
In 1987 Korea, under an oppressive military regime, a college student gets killed during a police interrogation involving torture. Government of officials are quick to cover up the death and order the body to be cremated. A prosecutor who is supposed to sign the cremation release, raises questions about a 21-year-old kid dying of a heart attack, and he begins looking into the case for truth. Despite a systematic attempt to silence everyone involved in the case, the truth gets out, causing an eruption of public outrage.