La seconda ombra

A man walks with his child on the grass of a hill. He reaches an old country house, where years before he had spent his childhood during World War II. The deserted and desolate rooms make him travel back in memory to the time when the war was ending. Episodes of family life pass before his eyes: father, mother, grandmother and six children, of which he, Silvano, the youngest, was made mute by the shock of a bomb exploding...

Via the New York Times: "This documentary was distilled from a 3 1/2-hour television film Nessuno o Tutti, to make the point that many inmates now in mental hospitals could be released without harm to society, and to their advantage. Both patients -- chosen for their ability to talk before a camera -- and sponsors in the community at large are interviewed to promote the concept of the patients' re-integration into the outside world. Three men (Paolo, Angelo, and Marco -- a mentally handicapped youth) talk to the interviewers about their own perspectives, and while the success of the mentally handicapped working at one plant is illustrated, the implied excesses of hospitals run by the Catholic Church are also discussed. Filming was not allowed inside those institutions."

The director interviews five people with different backgrounds about love and sex.

Enrico Berlinguer (Sassari, May 25, 1922 - Padua, June 11, 1984) was an Italian politician, general secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1972 until his death.

A married couple lives for fifteen years in the desert of marriage in an unnatural sentimental existence. Then the question of an abortion arises. The absence of a reciprocal desire causes a heavy and untrue behavior. They are practically two puppets. But one day something special happens in their life. A new existence starts, based on a more careful attention of the one for the other. The search of a love' s desire finally becomes credible and needed. And day by day the two rediscover themselves and learn how to really love each other.

Charlo and Carla are on their honeymoon. She is three months pregnant. He, furious about his marriage of convenience, recalls the past and ponders on The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, dear to the Surrealists. While she is bleeding, he spends the night with a beautiful stranger...

A group of pilgrims in the Vatican is trapped in an enclosed elevator. Then chaos erupts, and repressed urges come to the surface.