Ted Morgan has been treading water for most of his life. After his wife leaves him, Ted realizes he has nothing left to live for. Summoning the courage for one last act, Ted decides to go home and face the people he feels are responsible for creating the shell of a person he has become. But life is tricky. The more determined Ted is to confront his demons, to get closure, and to withdraw from his family, the more Ted is yanked into the chaos of their lives. So, when Ted Morgan decides to kill himself, he finds a reason to live.

After the death of his mother, a young boy calls a radio station in an attempt to set his father up on a date. Across the country, an engaged woman becomes convinced that they belong together, despite their never having met. Will their paths collide despite the odds?

A beautiful 14-year-old girl has just reached marriageable age in a village in Senegal. She has many suitors; however, she is in love a poor student who has returned to the village while the university is on strike. At birth, she had been promised in marriage to Diogoye, who went away to work in France. Diogoye, who supplied her parents with many things over the years, has now sent a dowry, and asked that she be married to him in the village in his absence; she would then be sent to France.

A few weeks before Carnival, slum boys organize huntings for stray cats, whose leather can be used in Samba percussion instruments, like the Tamborim, a small drum.

The attractive Oberleutnant Paul Wendlandt is stationed in North Africa as a fighter pilot. While in Berlin to deliver a report he is given a day's leave, and on the stage of the cabaret theatre "Skala" sees the popular Danish singer Hanna Holberg. For Paul it is love at first sight. When Hanna visits friends after the end of the performance, he follows her, and speaks to her in the U-Bahn. After the party in her friends' flat, he accompanies her home and chance throws them further together when an air raid warning forces them to take cover in the air raid shelter. Hanna reciprocates Paul's feelings, but after a night spent together Paul has to return immediately to the front. There now follows a whole series of misunderstandings, and one missed opportunity after another. While Hanna waits in vain for some sign of life from Paul, he is flying on missions in North Africa. When he tries to visit her in her Berlin flat, she is giving a Christmas concert in Paris.

The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.

In her last year of secondary school, a bright Indonesian student is determined to pursue her education and resist getting married, despite the expectations of her community.

"Olivia" captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress Julie and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Julie and the other head of the school Cara in its final months.

Police inspector Sciarra, struggling with an identity crisis, and Domenica, an orphan who would like to know about her mother, spend one day together along the streets of Naples. It's Sciarra's last day of work and he has to take Domenica to the morgue, to identify a man who might have raped her. To Domenica, Sciarra is a father she never had, to him she is the daughter he couldn't have.

Events take an unexpected turn when a young woman attends her boyfriend's graduation party at his parents' home. Adapted from the Stephen King short story.

A picnic by the river. Pablo is in love with his pretty older cousin, but she would rather be alone with her lover, so she gets rid of the boy by sending him off in search of a gift. Something strange happens to Pablo during his trip. Upon his return, he is not the only one whose innocence is at stake.

Luise, called Pünktchen, and Anton are closest of friends. Being the daughter of a wealthy surgeon, young Pünktchen lives in a great house. Her mother, who always travels through the world more for public relation reasons than for the social tasks she pretends to fulfill, is never available to her as a mother. Anton, son of a single and sick mother in financial trouble, does his best to help her out of it by working late. Pünktchen decides to help her only friend (as nobody else would anyway) and starts singing in public places. Trouble arises when Anton can't resist stealing a golden lighter and Pünktchen's secret life is discovered by her parents. Two troubled families finally can see the need for actions to be taken.