Earthly Paradise

During the Civil War, a Southern civilian is about to be hanged for attempting to sabotage a railway bridge. When the execution takes place from the bridge, the rope breaks and he begins his escape toward home.

Since his wife died, Inspector Louis Baroni (Philippe Noiret) has become a virtual recluse, preferring the solitude of his quiet house to the company of others. His period of mournful contemplation is broken when he is called out to look into the suspicious death of Madame Morlaix who, according to her husband Edouard (Michel Serrault), fell from an upstairs window. Curious to find out more, Baroni begins his inquiry.

This is a psychological drama about Louis Riquier (Charles Berling), a veteran of the Algerian war and a divorced father whose wife (Beatrice Palme) has custody of their children and who barricades himself with the kids in his country house. The police and the press surround the house, but he does not want to surrender. Instead, he gets more and more violent. Manipulated by their father, the kids go along with the scenario, taking it as a game. The film has as background the turbulence of 1968, with all its left-wing political implications. As in the director's previous film (Vieux fusil (The Old Gun), the gun also has multiple purposes here. Literally speaking, it is the instrument of crime; metaphorically, it is the force that would liberate the poor victim from his tragic fate. But the hero is just too violent and emotionally disturbed to evoke one's pity.

Two adventurers and best friends, Roland and Manu, are the victims of a practical joke that costs Manu his pilot's license. With seeming contrition, the jokesters tell Roland and Manu about a crashed plane lying on the ocean floor off the coast of Congo stuffed with riches. The adventurers set off to find the loot.

During the prohibition era, Cornelius, a bootlegger, is on the run from the American coastguards. He comes across a silent film actress, Linda, on the set of a movie and falls in love with her.

Race driver who has lost his membership card becomes the chauffeur of a gangsters pack

Because "Tante Zita" main theme is death: a twenty-year old girl, Annie (Shimkus) lives with her mother and her aunt (both played by first-class actresses Suzanne Flon and Katina Paxinou). The auntie is dying, and for the first time in her life, Annie has to cope with death. One night, she finds it too hard to bear, and leaving home where the old woman is suffering, she begins to hang around in Paris. She will meet people, and, from dusk to dawn, she will learn to leave her childhood behind and to grow into a woman.

Alice is the widow of a Jewish surgeon who helps the former diplomat Jerome smuggle Jews out of Austria to save them from the Nazis. The duo recruits Charles, a shoe manufacturer whose uncle is a Nazi sympathizer in the Vichy government. Charles and Alice become lovers when they are picked up in Paris by Nazi soldiers on a curfew violation.

This Civil War anthology adapts three Ambrose Bierce stories "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "Chickamauga" and "The Mockingbird."

Documentary

Reporter Marcello has a brief encounter with Irene while waiting for a train. A young woman who has lost her sight finds herself falling for the voice of a ship's captain she hears over a radio broadcast. Egle, a massage therapist who is soon to be married, finds herself pursuing one last fling with Gabriele -- though the odds are not in her favor, since he happens to be gay. Elena is a young woman with a child who wants to abandon her husband. And Carla wonders if she has any future at all with her lover -- who is married to someone else.

A traveling salesman is sent to prison after being accused of bigamy, while his wife and son are forced to consider leaving him permanently.

Three gorgeous seamstresses meet on the historic steps of the Piazza de Spagna in Rome to discuss one another's love lives.

Deals with the works of the artist Giotto, contrasting the hieratic mood of his predecessors with his innovations. Shows the major cycles of his frescoes, including those at the Upper and Lower Church of San Francesco, Assisi, the Scrovegni family Arena Chapel in Padua, and St. Croce in Florence.