A bomb blows up in Milan and five people die. After only three hours Ravida, the chief of the Secret Service, knows the name of the killer and that of his chief.

Disillusioned with romance, Beth, an ambitious New Yorker, travels to Rome for her sister's wedding, where she plucks magic coins from a special fountain of love. The coins attract unwanted attention from an assortment of odd yet ardent suitors: a sausage merchant, a street magician, an artist, and a male model. But when the best man from the wedding, persistent reporter Nick, throws his hat in the ring, Beth wonders if his love is the real thing.

Life in Naples is tough, so Neapolitans invent ways to get by. Whatever works, conning mostly, tricking the IRS, the university, the landlord, cruise ship passengers, even conning victims three times with the same ruse.

A well known actor comes to off-season Capri to unwind and meets a young man. The attraction is immediate and mutual but before their relationship can get off the ground, an alluring woman with a spontaneous sexuality and care free attitude joins the triangle and the boy is slowly pushed out of the picture.

Two linen fabric dealers with their shops close to one another, battle against each other for more and more costumers. Umberto constantly loses clients because of the tough competition brought by Leone, who offers the best prices in the neighborhood. But they leave differences aside when the rise of Fascism places Anti-Semitic politics which rigidly control business like the one conducted by the Jewish Leone, and those new regulations are viewed by Umberto as completely unfair. The long rivalry soon becomes a great friendship.

A moral discussion between sexes arises when an aspiring photographer secretly takes pictures of his barely dressed neighbour in the search for his artistic expression.

Attilio is a 17-year-old boy living in the Traiano neighborhood of Naples. With his father having just been released from prison, in order to earn some money he agrees to be a guardian for Anastasia, a young prostitute from Eastern Europe. Progressively a feeling arises between the two that will push the boy to make choices.

This is a true story about forty Jewish children on their way to Palestine, who were blocked by the German and Italian occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941. Before finding a haven at Villa Emma in Nonantola in northern Italy, where they arrived on June 17, 1942, the children spent several adventurous months in Slovenia, caught up in the ongoing fight between the partisans and the Italian army. In April 1943, another 33 children, some from the Balkans, others from France, joined the original group. All were orphans who had lost their parents in concentration camps and had subsequently been smuggled out of Germany by Recha Freier, a well-known Zionist. The group ranged in age from six to twenty one and settled in at Villa Emma with their chaperones and teachers, Josef Indig, Marco Schoky and the pianist Boris Jochverdson.