Amongst the mountains of Lesotho, an 80-year-old widow winds up her affairs and makes arrangements for her burial. But when her village is threatened with resettlement due to the construction of a reservoir, she finds a new will to live and ignites a spirit of resistance within her community.
Set in the South just after the US Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband, believed killed in battle. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he suddenly returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter. Laurel herself is unsure, but willing to take the man into her home, and perhaps later into her heart.
Divorced couple Georgia and David find themselves on a shared mission: they team up and travel to Bali to stop their daughter Lily from making the same mistake they once made 25 years ago.
A rising star at agri-industry giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Mark Whitacre suddenly turns whistleblower. Even as he exposes his company’s multi-national price-fixing conspiracy to the FBI, Whitacre envisions himself being hailed as a hero of the common man and handed a promotion.
Toni, Aghi, Bubu, and Saras get the task of making essays. They create a free school for street children but they chose to earn money than learn.
Australian journalist Guy Hamilton travels to Indonesia to cover civil strife in 1965. There—on the eve of an attempted coup—he befriends a Chinese Australian photographer with a deep connection to and vast knowledge of the Indonesian people, and also falls in love with a British national.
Bhoominathan, a NASA scientist, returns to his drought-affected village in Tamil Nadu and decides to fight against the evil corporates and corrupt politicians responsible for the plight of his people.
China, during the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The arranged marriage between Wang Lung, a humble farmer, and O-Lan, a domestic slave, will endure the many hardships of life over the years; but the temptations of a fragile prosperity will endanger their love and the survival of their entire family.
Fleeing heartbreak in the big city, Ichiko returns to Komori, her rural hometown. She battles summer's rain and humidity, bakes her own bread, grows hothouse tomatoes and tills the fields. During autumn, the time for pickling and preserving fish and sweet potatoes, Ichiko begins reaping rice and recalls her departure five years before.
Elena and Ivan are getting ready to enter into a new phase in their life. They are leaving the metropolis of Barcelona to settle in the Catalan countryside, where they are taking over a cork oak plantation. Not only will the business pay for their living, but they also want to exploit the plantation equitably and sustainably. But despite their ideals, Elena and Ivan soon find themselves in a crisis which will endanger not only their project, but also their relationship.
Tantra and Tantri are inseparable. When they secretly steal eggs from the family’s sacrificial offering, Tantri always gets the whites and Tantra the yolks. One day, however, the yolk is missing, as is Tantra. Her brother gravely ill and in hospital, Tantri starts slipping into magical parallel worlds, approaching the inevitable farewell through costumes, body paint and dance. When at one point Tantri’s mother washes the paint from her face, it is as if tenderly to expel the illusion that things can remain as they are. In long dream sequences and against the background of the Balinese philosophy of sekala – the seen – and niskala – the unseen – Andini relates how one ten-year-old girl deals with parting and grief.
In Minangkabau, West Sumatera, Yuda a skilled practitioner of Silat Harimau is in the final preparations to begin his "Merantau" a century's old rites-of-passage to be carried out by the community's young men that will see him leave the comforts of his idyllic farming village and make a name for himself in the bustling city of Jakarta.
A popular high school girl strains her relationship with her close-knit clique when she begins falling for a reclusive, lower-class schoolmate.
A son quits his job and is persuaded by his father to head off to a cottage in the remote mountains. Together, the two of them manage to get through their days while wearing old jerseys left by a deceased grandmother. The following summer, the two once again leave the stifling heat of Tokyo, as if escaping to the mountain cottage. However, the next summer is very different.
Five houses, one bus stop, cows and nothing but fields. 24-year-old Christin lives on the farm of her long-term boyfriend Jan. The exciting post-reunification years that defined her childhood are long gone. Her relationship is loveless. She keeps the cherry liqueur close at hand. In the shimmering heat of summer, time seems to stand still – until 46-year-old wind energy engineer, Klaus, arrives.
Maria is a shellfisherwoman and midwife in a small village in the Illa de Arousa in 1970s Galicia. After an unexpected event, she is forced to flee to Portugal.
Kris and her partially disabled uncle run a derelict farm together. Their quirky yet loving relationship, is built upon daily routine, and it becomes challenged when Kris finds a romantic interest and asks herself some life-changing questions.
A young woman leaves the city to return to her hometown in the countryside. Seeking to escape the hustle and bustle of the city, she becomes self-sufficient in a bid to reconnect with nature.
During the last years of Franco's dictatorship, Fernando, an old republican exile, returns to his home in a small Castilian village and befriends Aurora, a young and attractive teacher.
On this lonesome birthday, Johan tries to celebrate it as if his late mother is still here. Succumbing to his past, though in reality, there is only Paran, his best friend.