Everyone in Marco's life seems constantly restless, from his brilliant but unhappily married parents to his own wife Marina, or even Luisa, the real love of his life, a girl he met during a fateful summer in the '70s and always stayed in touch with. Tragedy and fate seem to haunt him, yet he somehow manages never to get ensnared in the chaos—like his namesake, “the hummingbird”, he focuses all his energy at standing still.

Everyone in Marco's life seems constantly restless, from his brilliant but unhappily married parents to his own wife Marina, or even Luisa, the real love of his life, a girl he met during a fateful summer in the '70s and always stayed in touch with. Tragedy and fate seem to haunt him, yet he somehow manages never to get ensnared in the chaos—like his namesake, “the hummingbird”, he focuses all his energy at standing still.

Italy, 1977. Professor Bruschi is a retired widower who lives according to a strict routine he set for himself. An ardent old-style communist, he has always been at odds with the unconventional lifestyle led by his son and his hippieish girlfriend Stella. When their four-year-old daughter is left in his care out of the blue after the two break up, the old professor becomes a sort of father figure to the girl, growing fond of her. However he's once again challenged when Stella also arrives for a stay in his elegant villa, reclaiming custody of her daughter.

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.

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.

Garage owner Angelo and big-time film producer Alberto find themselves occupying neighbouring beds in a Rome hospital after suffering heart attacks. Alberto is a gregarious joker - and chain smoker - who has a strong effect on the impressionable Angelo. However, as one of the men's condition deteriorates, the other becomes more deeply involved in his personal life.

With her father on trial, 15-year-old Mignon leaves Paris to stay with her Italian relatives. The rather prim, snooty teen at first struggles to fit in with the more earthy Forbicioni family, each with their own problems. Eventually she bonds with her lovestruck little cousin Giorgio—who'll learn important life lessons over the course of his summer with Mignon.

A pair of teen friends – known as "Chicken & Curry" because they are virtually inseparable – fail their high school finals and try to cover it by claiming that Curry is in the midst of an identity crisis that can only be solved by a visit to his ancestral homeland, India. While the ruse works wonderfully on their parents, this impromptu journey of self-discovery takes an unexpected detour when Curry locates his biological sister and remains captivated by the country he first despised, and Chicken falls for an older doctor working for Médecins Sans Frontières.

“I approached Pierluigi Cappello when he became my bedside table companion. We didn’t know each other, but were already intimate. His poems are full of images, I might even have dreamt some. I didn’t know anything about his personal life, about the motorcycle accident when he was sixteen, and that he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. There’s no trace of it in the poems: in his verses Pierluigi runs, and sometimes he flies.”

14-year-old Siddharta, wise beyond his age, has to deal every day with his heroin-addict mother Silvia and an absent father. One day, his four-year-old sister Domitilla accidentally pricks her finger on one of Silvia's used needles without her noticing. Seeking advice on the Internet, Siddharta is told to have her tested for hepatitis and AIDS. Thus he embarks on a odyssey of medical bureaucracy and both kind and uncaring adults.