Eddie Parker, his wife Tracy and their 12-year-old son Mitch lead blue-collar lives on the outskirts of America’s pleasure capital, Las Vegas. A compulsive gambler, Eddie has never won big. Tending her small garden in the desert, Tracy tries to keep the fragile family life together. Then an elusive stranger shows up claiming there’s something special about their home and he makes an offer that quickly turns into the family’s obsession. The only question is how deep are they willing to go?

Aurel works as a security guard in a large Bucharest department store and is married to Irina, who accepts a job in Cairo against her husband’s wishes. She flies to Egypt and having had a breath of fresh air she returns transformed and only for a few days. Soon she sets out again, but this time she will not come back. Aurel receives a phone call saying that his wife has killed herself. So this “other Irene” turns out to be a woman that her husband rediscovers little by little, when it’s already too late, as she finally returns from abroad in a sealed lead coffin. And Aurel finds himself fighting the image of a woman he apparently never knew.

Twelve-year-old Tedo lives with his young mother Keto in an isolated hut on the outskirts of Tbilisi. Tedo and Keto are refugees from Abchasia. The civil war has claimed everything they ever owned and separated their family. They had to leave behind Tedo’s father – his weak heart made it impossible for him to take on such a strenuous journey. Tedo is now an apprentice at a car repair shop and Keto is working as a sales assistant. Tedo gives the few pennies that he earns to his mother so that she no longer has to be nice to strange, unfriendly men. One day, when he discovers that she has a lover it becomes all too much for him and he decides to return to his father in Abchasia. Tedo meets many people on his journey – and suffers many a blow. He is by no means welcome everywhere. As his journey comes to an end he has acquired many an insight – such as the realization that the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.

It’s the rock ‘n’ roll era in Germany - the lust for life and rebellion is in the air. In 1950s Germany on a sunny afternoon in an amusement park, Lulu, a prized beauty from a well-heeled, white German family, meets Jimi, the impossibly handsome son of a damaged African American World War II veteran, and falls head over heels in love. The inhabitants of the conservative small town are horrified. Lulu’s scheming mother, Gertrud, do all in her power to tear the two lovers apart, but the trio are only the first of many obstacles that will stand in the way of the couple’s passion. But Lulu and Jimi won’t let anybody or anything get in their way! They live and love on the run, always one step ahead of their pursuers. Until they fall into a trap...

The story takes place in a country about which we know nothing: a country of snow and dense forests, somewhere in the North. A family lives in an isolated house near a lake. Alexi, the brother, is a young man with a pure heart. A woodcutter. An ecstatic, prey to epileptic fits, he is entirely opened to the nature that surrounds him. Alexi is terribly close to his younger sister, Hege. Their blind mother, their father, and their little brother are the silent witnesses to their overwhelming love. A stranger arrives, a young man barely older than Alexi...

Kym is released from rehab for a few days so she can go home to attend her sister Rachel’s wedding. The home environment is always challenging for a recovering addict, no less so when the visit if only for a few days. While the sisters feel genuine affection for one another, there is tension in their relationship. Rachel feels that her father dotes on Kym far too much and Kym is upset to learn that Rachel has selected a friend of hers, Emma, to be her maid of honor. Their father is genuinely concerned about Kym’s well-being but doesn’t see the stress the relationship is causing. Both women also have to deal with their selfish mother who is clearly more concerned with her own well-being ahead of that of her children. Underlying the family’s dynamic is a tragedy that occurred many years previously and for which Kym is held by some to be responsible. The past will be re-visited and skeletons will start surfacing from hitherto closed and forgotten closets.

Eighteen-year-old Delia Fratila comes from a poor family in a small Romanian town. She has won an expensive car in a promotional competition by mailing in three labels from juice bottles. To prove that the beverage company really is handing over the prize, a video is to be shot showing Delia and the car. Delia and her parents make the long trip to Bucharest for the video shoot, which takes place on a large square in the middle of the city. The shoot takes the whole day. What Delia has to do seems quite easy: she has to sit behind the wheel of the car, drink juice and thank the company. But the shooting is plagued with the usual problems: Delia keeps forgetting her lines, the drink doesn’t look good enough for the client, they have to keep refreshing her makeup, the shooting angle needs to be changed, some spotlights break, etc. Also there arises a conflict in the family: the parents want to sell the new car and to start a small business, while the girl would like to keep the car.

Pippa Lee is a woman in the prime of life. A happily married mother of two grown-up children, she is also a generous hostess and an excellent cook. Her marriage to legendary publisher Herb Lee, who is thirty years her senior, is a relationship based on partnership, and it goes without saying that she will accompany her husband during the next phase of his life. When Herb turns 80 the couple moves out of their luxury home in New York and into a formidable retirement village in Connecticut. This is an idyllic world that promises to allow the pair to spend their remaining years together in quiet comfort. But inside, Pippa Lee, is anything but happy about this prospect and, deep within her subconscious, old reflexes are awakened. Pippa Lee was not always the poised and elegant woman she is now. Her younger days were quite different, turbulent times, full of experiments with drugs and erotic escapades. And in the sterile world of this third age paradise the sins of her youth begin to look more and more attractive to her. Pippa takes up smoking again and, when she meets a good-looking man, her romantic desires are rekindled.