Like Turtles

Story about two brothers and their wives, and the interactions between them and their two high school age children. When the kids get into serious trouble together, how will the parents relationships change with and among each other? Will the parents protect the kids or force them to face the consequences of their actions?

Carlo and Elisa are a successful couple. He’s a university professor and writer facing a creative block; she’s a brilliant, sharp-witted journalist, known for her internationally published editorials. They live in Rome, moving between accomplishments and routine, affection and something that might be fading. In search of new energy, they travel to Morocco with their lifelong friends, Anna and Paolo, and their thirteen-year-old daughter Vittoria—bright, curious, a little eccentric. Tensions soon rise.

A middle-aged man, Pietro, becomes a widower and must take care of his daughter. He will never have the time to delve into his own pain, committing himself to raising his daughter with love and dedication, in an all-encompassing relationship in which one heals the other's wounds through his own. When, after a few years, he tries to start a new life with a new partner, not everything will go as hoped: his daughter's reaction will be exaggerated and Pietro will be put to the test. He will find himself struggling between anger and paternal instinct.

Young Father Giulio returns to Rome, where he was born and raised, to replace a priest who has left the clergy to start a family. He is delighted to reunite with his loved ones, especially his mother, sister, and old friends. Once radical leftists like Giulio himself, the latter are now each coping in their own way with the defeat of the revolution. Soon, however, Giulio realizes that despite his best efforts, he seems unable to solve the problems troubling those around him.

In a small suburb on the outskirts of Rome, the cheerful heat of summer camouflages a stifling atmosphere of alienation. From a distance, the families seem normal, but it’s an illusion: in the houses, courtyards and gardens, silence shrouds the subtle sadism of the fathers, the passivity of the mothers and the guilty indifference of adults. But it’s the desperation and repressed rage of the children that will explode and cut through this grotesque façade, with devastating consequences for the entire community.

Formal portraits, bookends in this 80-year saga, enclose the central story, which opens with the baptism of Carlo, a baby in his grandfather's lap, and ends with Carlo as a grandfather with a baby in his arms. And never once do we get out of the house, whose rooms provide structure. Comfort or passion? Carlo can't really decide until it's too late.

Rome, 1984, Aria is nine-year-old girl. On the verge of divorce, Aria's infantile and selfish parents are too preoccupied with their careers and extra-marital affairs to properly tend to any of Aria's needs. While her two older sisters are pampered, Aria is treated with cold indifference. Yet she yearns to love and to be loved. At school, Aria excels academically but is considered a misfit by everyone. She is misunderstood. Aria finds comfort in her cat - Dac and in her best friend - Angelica. Thrown out of both parents' homes, abandoned by all, even her best friend, Aria finally reaches the limit of what she can bear. She makes an unexpected decision in her life.

At the end of the 1950s in Africo, a small village in the southern valley of Aspromonte, a woman dies in childbirth because a doctor fails to arrive on time. No road connects Africo with the other villages. In the wake of this tragedy, all of Africo’s citizens -including children - abandon their usual occupations and unite to build their own road. Giulia, the new schoolteacher, comes from the North with a mission to teach standard Italian to help bring cultural cohesion with Africo and the rest of Italy. But she will have to contend with the local mafioso Don Totó, who is determined to ensure this the town remains cut off, and thus, under his power.

When their father's will forces them to live together, siblings Nik and Tesla — and Tesla's kids — try to overcome their differences to become a family.

Antonio, a former shipyard worker, leads a mild and peaceful life: he plays bowls with friends, takes care of his elderly mother, has an ex-wife with whom he is on excellent terms and Emilia, his only and beloved daughter When Emilia announces to him one day that she has decided to get married, Antonio is filled with joy, he can finally fulfill his dream by giving her the reception they have always dreamed of together being able to count on the savings of a lifetime.However, the bank of which he has always been a client seems to be hiding something, the employees are suddenly elusive and the director inexplicably changes constantly.The task of paying for his daughter's wedding will prove increasingly difficult and Antonio will discover, against his will, that those who keep our treasures don't always keep our dreams as well.

Matteo is a young successful businessman, audacious, charming and energetic. Ettore instead, is a calm, righteous, second grade teacher always living in the shadows, still in the small town from where both come from. They’re brothers but with two very different personalities. A dramatic event will force them to live together in Rome for a few months, bringing up the opportunity to face their differences with sympathy and tenderness, in a climax of fear and euphoria.

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