Absolute Strangers

"Mom, tell her he exists!" Taffy begs her mother Julia. Her stupid classmate doesn't believe that Taffy's father, supposedly a polar explorer, really exists. So Julia fibs that he's coming to visit for Christmas. But Robert has actually absconded before his daughter is born. Where to conjure up a daddy now? Julia persuades her colleague Volker to step in. Everything is going well when the "real Robert" turns up...

A farmer and his wife live in a rural part of Inner Mongolia with their three children. Chinese population control policies prevent them from having any more. The farmer sets out for the nearest town to obtain birth control. He comes upon a Russian truck driver who has ended up in a lake. The farmer takes the man back to his farm, and after initially being appalled, the Russian becomes enchanted with the peaceful life of the countryside and decides to stay. But his presence presages big changes for the peasants.

Major Reisman is "volunteered" to lead another mission using convicted army soldiers, sentenced to either death or long prison terms. This time their mission is to kill a Nazi general who plans to assassinate Hitler.

Learning of a Nazi plot to attack Washington, D.C. with a deadly nerve gas, Major Wright leads twelve convicts on a suicide mission deep into occupied France to destroy the secret factory where the poison is made.

The mother and daughter face the question of whether to keep the pregnancy or terminate it. Both are under pressure from relatives, friends, and doctors. Both are going through a difficult decision-making process. Each episode of the artistic part shows the life circumstances and the path that a woman in a crisis situation goes through. In documentary inserts, representatives of various professions (psychologists, lawyers, gynecologists, clergymen) tell how they face the problem of abortion in their lives.

Dr. Richard Sturgess leads a team of compassionate doctors at a veteran's hospital. Along with Drs. Morgan, Handleman and Van Dorn, he fights to deliver adequate care to needy veterans in the face of funding cuts and a corrupt administration. To succeed, the staff may have to bend the rules and circumvent the villainous "Article 99," a bureaucratic loophole that prevents veterans from receiving the benefits they deserve.

"The Laramie Project" is set in and around Laramie, Wyoming, in the aftermath of the murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard. To create the stage version of "The Laramie Project," the eight-member New York-based Tectonic Theatre Project traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, recording hours of interviews with the town's citizens over a two-year period. The film adaptation dramatizes the troupe's visit, using the actual words from the transcripts to create a portrait of a town forced to confront itself.

In his final attempt to free himself from the curse of the Hulk, Dr. David Banner becomes involved in a dangerous international espionage mission that may finally lead to a cure. As forces close in and the stakes rise, Banner faces an ultimate sacrifice, bringing his tragic journey to a definitive and emotional conclusion.

A gangster sets out to fulfill his father's dream of becoming a doctor.

Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.

When Tyler Davidson brings his college buddy Chase home for the summer holidays a secret is revealed that threatens to tear his perfect family apart.

A divorcee has a passionate affair with a much younger surfing instructor in Hawaii.

On Christmas Eve, Dejair, a former resistance fighter against the military dictatorship, gathers with his family in the backyard. During a Secret Santa game, the contrast between appearances and private truths emerges. A water gun gift leads Dejair to denounce the absurdity of giving a child a weapon.

Warner lives in a cramped townhouse with his wife, Claire, and their two children. While buying a house in Calgary's competitive real estate market, he learns his job isn't as secure as he'd like, and when he asks Claire to reconsider, they fight. On the same afternoon, Claire is attacked; Warner emerges as the prime suspect.

Two young brothers are abandoned by their mother during summer of 1948, they run into the forest and survive there for seven years.

15-year old Klaus Kambor, called Kurbel, is living in a village in Lusatia and already thinks of himself as an adult. He can hold a lot of rhubarb wine and has already kissed a girl. But with his new method of lawn mowing, which he thinks is brilliant, Klaus makes a big mistake: He causes a wild fire in the forest. Then he does not react adult-like at all, but shirks the responsibility, which leads to the break-up with his girlfriend Daniela. Furthermore, Klaus does not realize that several of the places he likes the most in his environment are now going to be sacrificed to mining. When Klaus becomes friends with the teacher Konzak and with the construction worker Jule, he feels understood for the first time and starts to take more responsibility.

Vincent, a reckless French boy, travels to Hungary to liquidate the home of a relative he has never seen. In an apartment cluttered with dusty objects and furniture, he is confronted not only with the past of others, but also with his own present.

Kai Wodar is the son of a German-Yugoslav couple in Vienna. His father works as Milan coach in professional football and has at the time in Austria a commitment. But Kai, the name his friends Fips, his mother can hardly know, they killed in a traffic accident. For several years he brings to a boarding school before his father, now married to the Yugoslav Gordana, brings him back to himself. For Fips begin restless years; Milan Wodar constantly changes clubs.

Columnist Peyton MacGruder befriends a reader who sent her a note that inspires Peyton to reconsider the choices she's made and her reluctance to accept her boyfriend's marriage proposal.

A dramatization of the relationship between heart surgery pioneers Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.