Pinuccia, the tailor
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.
Clara
Zia
Studying to become a teacher in 1950s Northern Italy, Sicilian immigrant Pietro is joined by his older brother Giovanni. While Giovanni is an illiterate worker, Pietro shows considerable promise in his field, prompting the elder sibling to take on even the toughest jobs in order to support his brother's academic pursuits.
Truccatrice TV
Director Maurizio Nichetti is invited on TV to introduce a screening of his neo-realist classic 'The Icicle Thief'. He is horrified to discover that his black-and-white tale of life in poverty is constantly interrupted by garish color commercials, and even more horrified when a power cut in the studio causes film and commercials to mix up – a glamorous model finds herself in the arms of an unemployed pauper, while his wife finds herself in consumers' heaven. Nichetti has to break into the film to try to sort everything out.
