Finding fireflies

When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.

12-year-old Renato experiences three significant events on the same day: the beginning of the Second World War, getting a bike, and witnessing the arrival of the gorgeous Malèna. Through his eyes, we see the curse of beauty and loneliness of Malena, whose husband is presumed dead, and, through his soul, we see his love for her.

The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

Lucy Harmon, an American teenager is arriving in the lush Tuscan countryside to be sculpted by a family friend who lives in a beautiful villa. Lucy visited there four years earlier and exchanged a kiss with an Italian boy with whom she hopes to become reacquainted.

From childhood to fatherhood, Piero learns things the hard way while growing up in a working-class neighborhood of Livorno.

A reluctant summer together transforms into an enchanting adventure when a young boy discovers his aunt's mysterious Sicilian house holds secrets and, perhaps, ancient spirits lurking within its walls.

Purehearted teen Lazzaro is content living as a sharecropper in rural Italy, but an unlikely friendship with the marquise’s son will change his world.

In 1920s Bagheria, Giuseppe 'Peppino' Torrenuova works as a shepherd to financially help his poor family. Over the next fifty years, Giuseppe's life, as well as the life of the village, is observed. Giuseppe grows up, joins the Communist Party, marries a local girl, has children, and forges a political career for himself.

In a tiny community enclosed by wheat fields, the adults shelter indoors, while six children venture out on their bikes across the scorched, deserted countryside. Exploring a dilapidated and uninhabited farmhouse, nine-year-old Michele discovers a secret so momentous, so terrible, that he dares not tell anyone about it...

The true story of the life of Gavino Ledda, the son of a Sardinian shepherd, and how he managed to escape his harsh, almost barbaric existence by slowly educating himself, despite violent opposition from his brutal father.