In recent days, Rome has been the scene of an unusual event: when it rains, the manholes exhale a dense steam of unknown origin and composition. No one knows that those who breathe in the mysterious substance will have to deal with what they repress, their darkest instincts, their anger. Not even the Morel family. Since Cristina’s death in an accident a year earlier, the love of her husband Thomas and their son Enrico has given way to a forced cohabitation, while the youngest of the family, Barbara, would only like to see them united again as they were before. The accident could have been avoided, both Thomas and Enrico know it. Instead of taking responsibility and moving on, they stopped talking to each other. Now they are two souls full of rage, trapped in a Rome that resembles them: dark, nervous, on the verge of exploding.
Set in Rebibbia (a prison in Rome), the short film follows the lives of three inmates waiting for an interrogation.
Tonino
padre di Roberta
From the director of "L'estate di mio fratello", a movie about the incapability of relating with others. And the possibility of disappearing for real.
Sergio's Father
When Sergio learns that he will soon have a baby brother, his imagination kicks into gear in devious and alarming ways. But when his mother suffers a miscarriage, Sergio's feelings of guilt are all too real.
Bontempo/Kater Karlo
The librarian of the university Xenia schedules a S&M blind date with the masochist Ghost to satisfy her fantasies and sexual desires. They spend the night in his apartment having kinky sex and on the next morning Ghost is dead with slashed throat. Xenia cleans her evidences and leaves the place, but Ghost's friend Silver investigates the murder of Ghost and finds her files in a CD.
Italian thriller
Michele Ferramonti
Rimini, 1991. For more than a year, the uno bianca gang - they always use a white Fiat Uno - has plagued the area. Their crimes are violent, sometimes killing carabineri, and there's no particular pattern: a bank one day, a petrol station the next, extortion of a small business the next. Are they terrorists? A foreign gang? Tied to the Mafia? After a particularly bloody shootout, two detectives are assigned to start fresh: they go through the notebooks of previous investigators and they interview a few witnesses again. They find a pattern in the crimes and predict the next assault, but the special task force in Bologna is dismissive. Can they carry on alone; how far will they get?
Cop 2
Roseanna is dying of a heart condition, and all she wants is to be buried next to her daughter, in a cemetery that is getting full fast. The cemetery can't expand because Capestro, the man who owns the land next to the cemetery, won't sell. While Marcello is doing good deeds to make sure no one dies, Roseanna thinks of Marcello's future.
A Donatello Award nominated short drama that illustrates a man's addiction to reading - and of the steps taken by some in society to limit this "habit".
The annual film festival in Venice is, of course, an ideal place to make a film (how come no-one has thought of it before). Everything is there in Pupi Avati's Festival: the famous hotels Des Bain and Excelsior on the Lido, the shimmering sandy beach which captivated Visconti. The film was made last spring and exploits the presence of passing film stars such as Jack Nicholson. We see the hysterical press conferences, where journalists and experts ask intelligent questions-without listening to the answers.
Himself
2nd Man
In this thriller, American novelist David Raybourne (Andrew McCarthy) accidentally becomes entangled in the Red Brigade's terrorist plan to kidnap Italian Premier Aldo Moro during a research trip to Rome. As the terrorists attempt to kill David, he and his photojournalist friend (Sharon Stone) must struggle to stay alive.
Leo
In 1840, a young Russian aristocrat, Dimitri Sanin, is returning home after a long tour of Europe. In Germany, he falls in love with a beautiful pastry shop girl, Gemma Rosselli, who soon starts sharing his feelings. They decide to get married and, in order to finance the wedding, Dimitri goes back to Russia to sell his family estate. Unfortunately he falls prey to a seductress, Princess Maria Nikolaevna, who pretends to be willing to buy his land to come nearer him. Now Sanin is in a fix: should he choose the pure Gemma or the evil but irresistible Maria?
