These are the years of the First World War and Dr. Stefano Zorzi spends his days in the Exemption Clinic in a large city of Northern Italy, where he not only takes care of soldiers who arrive from the massacre of the front, but also he fights simulation and self-harm of those who hope to be dispensed, by sending them before the Military Court. If Stefano, in fact, does his utmost to heal soldiers and send them back to fight, Dr. Giulio Farradio makes them ill, or helps them to self-injure seriously enough to be exonerated. The two doctors, who went to university together and were great friends, they not only (secretly) challenge each other on a professional level, but also on the sentimental one: they are both linked to Anna, a courageous nurse with a strong character. But when the great ‘Spanish’ fever epidemic arrived in 1918, the time for love, politics and science ends up getting confused dangerously...
In Rome it hasn’t rained for three years and the lack of water is overturning rules and habits. Through the city dying of thirst and prohibitions moves a chorus of people, young and old, marginalised and successful, victims and profiteers. Their lives are linked in a single design, while each seeks his or her deliverance.
A widowed mother, tries desperately to get an entry into the ruthless world of professional football for her 12-yer-old son.
Ettore has spent the last five years in jail for a robbery. Once out of prison, he has nowhere to go, his wife broke up with him and doesn’t want him to meet their little daughter who was born right before he was arrested. Alone and desperate, Ettore roams the streets of Rome and meets a strange old man, Nicola. He decides to take advantage of him and rob him. But after breaking into his house, Ettore realizes Nicola doesn’t have anything worth stealing and furthermore, the old man tells him a rather stranger thing: he affirms to be Santa Claus…
Two brothers are in conflict over the way the Venetian lagoon has been transformed, and the identity of the city and its residents has drastically changed.