The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

Clara and Felice struggle to raise their three children in 1970s Rome. The eldest, Andrea, is transgender and yearns for another life where he gets to live as the boy he knows himself to be. Clara instinctively strives to protect her son by escaping into their imaginations to defuse family tensions.

A Sicilian family deals with the arrival of a group of immigrants on their island.

Bloody revenge of a young tailor during the peasant revolt of Bronte, Sicily. Salvo, the land keeper, is at the vanguard of the revolt who wants to possess everything of the former baron, even something he can not have: his elegance, his style. Salvo decides not to kill Tailor in return for a beautiful tailor made cut to fit jacket. During Tailor's sewing work some tragic memories come to surface, memories of a man tortured by unknowns. That is when Tailor finally react and challenge the unrestrained anger of the campier. In an amazing duel between the two, in the bloody and wild sun of Sicily, the Tailor pieces together the most tragic events of his life, starting up his old vengeance plan.

Grazia is a free-spirited mother-of-three married to shy fisherman Pietro and living on the idyllic but isolated island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea. She shows signs of manic depressive behavior — one moment she's laughing wildly and swimming half-naked in the sea, while the next she's curled in a ball on her bed. Out of her earshot, the adult members of her extended family vaguely discuss sending her to a facility of some sort in Northern Italy.

1860, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. While Garibaldi's troops are invading this lawless territory, four female bandits nicknamed the "Drudes" are looking for their own personal revenge.

It's 1943 and World War II is raging in Europe. In New York, Arturo and Flora the daughter of a restaurant owner are in love, but she is promised in marriage to the son of a Mafia boss. There is a way around this, but to be able to marry Flora, Arturo needs to get permission from her father, who lives in a village in Sicily. Arturo doesn't have any money, so the only way he can get to Sicily is to enlist in the U.S. Army, which is preparing for a landing on the island.

Elia plays soccer on the beach and on the dirt fields of a remote village in Sicily, where one day Michele, a talent scout for Serie A, arrives. His target should be some boys from the local soccer school who are shown and recommended to him through more or less legitimate means, but his attention is immediately captured by the innate skill of 18-year-old Elia, who has the mind of a 12-year-old. It is the summer of 2006 when the two meet; Italian soccer is on one hand shaken by the Moggi scandal, and on the other hand exalted by the victory at the World Cup in Germany. The boy’s life could be ready for a change, but so could Michele’s, who despite his professional appearance, is not doing very well.