The movie tells the little stories of a group of families who live in the same building in Rome as seen from the eyes of Sandrino, a little kid who is awaiting for a total eclipse of the sun, that really happened during summer of '61, and it was was fully visible from Italy. He sees his family life, a young girl who is about to marry a man she doesn't love, an old man who has just died and whose relatives fight for his inheritance, a blind trumpet player who hopes to recover, his little friends...

Greg is a police lieutenant; he must collect informations on eco-activists, infiltrating them for months. Myriam, a young free woman, is fighting to save a forest from the building of a dam. They meet and fall in love on the Zone. A beautiful life, a joy that Greg discovers, despite the risks of being unmasked. For each of them, time is short: soon everything will disappear.

In the first century, free-spirited Mary Magdalene flees the marriage her family has arranged for her, finding refuge and a sense of purpose in a radical new movement led by the charismatic, rabble-rousing preacher named Jesus.

Four tales unfold in the Eternal City: While vacationing in Rome, architect John encounters a young man whose romantic woes remind him of a painful incident from his own youth; retired opera director Jerry discovers a mortician with an amazing voice, and he seizes the opportunity to rejuvenate his own flagging career; a young couple have separate romantic interludes; a spotlight shines on an ordinary man.

Set in 1900, Lili d’Alengy, a Parisian cocotte at the height of her fame, flees Paris to hide her “idiot” daughter. There she meets Maria Montessori, who is pioneering a teaching method that may help the child.

Wounded at the Battle of Lepanto and recoverying in a Messina hospital, Miguel de Cervantes experiences a vision amidst fever and hallucinations. From the flames of burning books, Don Alonso Quijano is born—a man driven mad by tales of chivalry who transforms into the knight-errant Don Quixote. Accompanied by the simple Sancho Panza, lured by the promise of an island to rule, Quixote embarks on a quest where inns become castles and windmills turn into giants. Despite the cruel mockery of bored nobles and a series of crushing defeats, his madness reveals a disarming purity: he fights solely for justice and freedom, even as the world laughs. Betrayed and humiliated, he is eventually brought home in a cage, unable to survive without his ideals. As he dies, the scene shifts back to the Sicilian night: from the pain of war, Cervantes has forged a masterpiece—the stubborn dream of a more liberated humanity.

Nineteen-year-old Enzo and his twenty-year-old sister Carla have been left to fend for themselves for several years. When their father, Anthony, is released from prison, Enzo sees the fragile promise of a family to rebuild, unlike Carla, for whom the idea remains inconceivable. Haunted by his past, Enzo must confront a truth he has kept hidden for far too long.