Rather than choosing a great leader or king, God chooses Abraham, an elderly shepherd from Mesopotamia, as the way to establish his Covenant with mankind... A man of great faith, Abraham continues to believe in God even when He seems to have abandoned him.

The Merchant (Harvey Keitel) is a Westerner. A merchant dealing in precious stones from Afganistan and Turkey. He's above suspicion. In truth, the "Stone Merchant" is a Christian convert into Islam. He's rich, cultured, fascinating. Leda (Jane March) is a successful woman who works as Head of the Public Relations for a big company. She's married to Alceo, a professor at the Sapienza University, specialized in the history of terrorist movements. Alceo is on a wheel chair. He lost his legs in the attack to the American Embassy in Nairobi in 1998. Shahid is a terrorist. Now he's planning an attack along the English Channel. Their lives, their destinies cross in Turkey, where Leda and Alceo are on holiday. And the plot will go on to Rome and Turin till the epilogue of the attack on the ferry boat.

The life of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) as related by followers who gather after his death to tell stories so that Leone can record them: a privileged and virile youth, a prisoner of war, an heir who turns away from his father and gives all to the poor, a beggar for others, and an inspiration to friends who accept the Gospels' life of poverty.

In the mid-1990s, news broke that poet Dario Bellezza - who was friends with Sandro Penna, Alberto Moravia, Elsa Morante, Anna Maria Ortese, and Pier Paolo Pasolini - had AIDS: this was the beginning of the end for him. Today, friends, poets and literary critics tell the story of the first openly gay writer of Italian literature, one of the symbols of a thriving cultural scene. They called him 'Italy's poète maudit', to which his snarky response would be: "If anything, I was blessed, blessed by the Muses".

Adrian is a talented young sculptor eager to assert himself in the art world. His first exhibition in the Capital catches Gloria's eye. She's an art student looking for "her" artist. Between the two something's born and soon she becomes Adrian's lover and muse, as well as his agent. But someone else also falls in love with Adrian's work: Lulli, an internationally-renowned art critic – and also Gloria's guardian and lover before Adrian's arrival.

Daniela, a true Roman girl with a big face, weighs over a hundred kilos and always has the joke ready. She cohabits in a tiny apartment with her friend Luisa and works as an assistant to Maria Pace, owner of an art gallery.

Four homosexual men in their 40s have issues and no small degree of self hatred. Yet, can laugh at themselves and their comrades and often do.

In Calabria in the seventies, Max leads a group of his friends as they set up a private television network "TV Sila".