Martín is a 13-year-old orphan shoeshine boy from La Paz, Bolivia, who has lived his entire life in the streets with the hope and desire to find his father. Driven by this desire and his imagination, Martin begins to suspect that one of his best clients is his father; Mr Novoa, a lonely tailor whose only emotional bond is his dog, Astor, a fine German shepherd whom he cares for like a son.
Simone Segre, a renowned surgeon of Jewish origins, lives in a city in the north-east of Italy. A quiet life, an elegant apartment and no connection with his past. One day he finds himself assisting a man victim of a hit and run accident. But when he discovers a nazi tattoo on his chest, Simone abandons him to his destiny. Filled with guilt, he ends up tracing the man’s family: Marica, the eldest daughter; Marcello, a teenager plagued with racial hate; and little Paolo. The night will come when Marica knocks at Simone’s door and unknowingly asks for payback.
At night, a convoy of tractor crawlers rattle through the snow to groom the ski slopes. Just under 3000 metres in altitude, excavators dig into the ground using dynamite to build a reservoir for the preparation of artificial snow. Concrete blocks of apartments are springing up everywhere, while elsewhere in the mountains, young people have long since moved away and old people talk about how their hometown no longer has a future. Too many regions in the Alps have become dependent on hopelessly commercialized skiing. In PEAK, Hannes Lang observes the invasion and hostile takeover of the Alps by ski tourism and introduces us to the people affected: winners and losers, enthusiasts, sceptics and lost souls.
Bologna, 2002. Amidst protests against the labor reform, the assassination of a lawyer opens old wounds between Italy and France. Former far-left terrorist Marco, convicted of murder during the Years of Lead and living in Paris since then thanks to the Mitterrand Doctrine, is suspected of being its instigator. When the Italian government asks for extradition, Marco goes into hiding with his daughter Viola, precipitating also the life of his family back in Italy.
Bari, a city caught in the relentless economic crisis. Ivo is an agronomist, but the lack of opportunities pushes him to accept a job in the fertile region of Banat in Romania. Clara has just ended a relationship and is about to lose her job at the Bari harbor. Ivo and Clara meet by chance and seem to immediately understand each other. They spend only one night together before Ivo's departure, but that is enough to create a bond and wanting to meet again. When Clara visits him in Romania, they fall in love. But is exile their only way to happiness?
The story takes place in the summer of 1980 in Brindisi, Italy. Martino is a young man whose father isn't giving him enough attention. His older brother and his friends, including Silvia, a young northern Italian who spends her holidays in the south of the country and has a romance with Martino. Young people tend to enter an American military base north, and Martino ends up finding a US military officer, Captain Clark, a good friend who teaches him how to surf.
Thanks to archive material, reminiscences by those who knew her, and her own reflections vividly recited by actress Paola Cortellesi, the personal story and political career of Nilde Iotti transcends the biographical and touches the core of our own lives today.
