Riccardo Zinna
A cinic director and his assistant come back to Basilicata, their homeland, looking for redemption. 50 years aged and aristically loser, they try to shoot a rickety investigative movie titled "Il Vangelo secondo Mattei" in the same location where Pasolini filmed his "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" but focusing on the disasters caused by oil extractions in their wasteland of Basilicata, in the south of Italy. As main character, they choose Franco, 70 years old, that was an extra in Pasolini film...
Alberto (Claudio Bisio), post office manager of a small town in Brianza, under pressure of his wife Sylvia (Angela Finocchiaro), is willing to do anything to get the transfer to Milan. Even pretending to be disabled to climb in the ranking. But the trick does not work and as punishment, he is transferred in a small town in Campania, which to an inhabitant of the north is equivalent to a nightmare ...
The Milanese Donato returns from Spain, animated by the serious intention to go back to being the "ras della fossa". Second chapter of the famous 80s cult.
Giorgio Pellegrini, a former left-wing activist turned terrorist has fled to Central America and fought with a guerrilla movement. Fifteen years later he is fed up with living in the jungle and decides to return to Italy. What he wants is to lead a comfortable bourgeois life in his native country. Thanks to Anedda, a corrupt police inspector, and after giving away former comrades, he obtains a reduced jail sentence. Once released from prison he obsessively pursues his dream of becoming a "respectable" citizen, even if the way to it is paved with larceny, pimping, drug-dealing, rape, heist and murder...
While playing outside one day, nine-year-old Michele discovers Filippo, who is chained to the ground at the bottom of a hole. Michele witnesses town baddie Felice nearby and suspects something bad is happening. Michele is unsure whom he should tell about his discovery, eventually spilling the beans to his closest friend. Michele's parents learn of his discovery and warn him to forget what he saw
Jimi, a computer game designer, finds that his latest product has been infected by a virus which has given consciousness to the main character of the game, Solo. Tormented by the memory of his fled girlfriend Lisa and begged by Solo to end its useless "life", Jimi begins a search for people who can help him both to discover what happened to Lisa and to delete his game before it is released.
Pietro is the sensitive son of Domenico, a gruff father. Pietro falls in love with a beautiful girl, Ghisola, who lives with her grandparents.
An epileptic 12-year-old girl, Pippi, is hospitalized in the psychiatric ward instead of the neurological ward, due to an administration error. Out of this mistake begins the difficult journey towards being cured.
Writer/director/actor Nanni Moretti offers a three-part film diary which takes a sharply satiric look at Italian life.
