Lucio Amelio

When romantic journalist Paolo rescues American photographer Lizzy from a scuffle in an Italian village, his efforts at romance lead nowhere. But when they meet again in San Francisco, Paolo succeeds in wooing her. Can their love overcome the differences between the traditional Italian Communist and the modern, liberated American woman that threaten to tear the two apart?

Pasqualino Frafuso, known in Naples as "Pasqualino Seven Beauties" is a petty thief who lives off of the profits of his seven sisters while claiming to protect their honor at any cost, Pasqualino is arrested for murder and later sent to fight in the army after committing sexual assault. The Germans capture him and he gets sent to a concentration camp where he plots to make his escape by seducing a German officer.

In pre-World War II Sicily, just as the fascists come to power, two men fall in love with the same woman. The changes in their country's politics ultimately take all three on a journey across the ocean to New York City.

Naples, 1959. Pure Mathematics professor Renato Caccioppoli, Bakunin's grandson, is a tortured soul. Recently discharged from the psychiatric hospital, left by his wife, and increasingly disillusioned with academia and the Communist Party, he lives his last days with painful detachment.