Birthday Candles

Antonio, a former shipyard worker, leads a mild and peaceful life: he plays bowls with friends, takes care of his elderly mother, has an ex-wife with whom he is on excellent terms and Emilia, his only and beloved daughter When Emilia announces to him one day that she has decided to get married, Antonio is filled with joy, he can finally fulfill his dream by giving her the reception they have always dreamed of together being able to count on the savings of a lifetime.However, the bank of which he has always been a client seems to be hiding something, the employees are suddenly elusive and the director inexplicably changes constantly.The task of paying for his daughter's wedding will prove increasingly difficult and Antonio will discover, against his will, that those who keep our treasures don't always keep our dreams as well.

Carlo and Elisa are a successful couple. He’s a university professor and writer facing a creative block; she’s a brilliant, sharp-witted journalist, known for her internationally published editorials. They live in Rome, moving between accomplishments and routine, affection and something that might be fading. In search of new energy, they travel to Morocco with their lifelong friends, Anna and Paolo, and their thirteen-year-old daughter Vittoria—bright, curious, a little eccentric. Tensions soon rise.

Adriano is a middle-aged man living in a dilapidated villa in Tuscany, when a group of young idealistic students arrives to restore the villa's vineyards.

Matteo Scuro is a retired Sicilian bureaucrat, a widower with five children, all of whom live on the mainland and hold responsible jobs. He decides to surprise each with a visit and finds none as he imagined.

Back from the hospital where he has been treated after a heart attack, Lorenzo is on his way upstairs to his top-floor apartment in Naples when he meets Michela. The charming young woman, who has just moved to the facing apartment, has forgotten her keys and finds herself locked out. Cynical and grumpy, the retired lawyer who has been living estranged from the rest of the world, should normally leave her to her fate but he mellows under her spontaneous charm. He helps her, becomes friends not only with her but with her husband Fabio and their two children. For once, the self-declared misanthropist seems to be experiencing the long forgotten feeling of empathy.

Felice returns to his native Rione Sanità in Naples to look after his dying mother, having lived abroad for the last forty years. Here he discovers that his old friend Oreste has become a notorious crimeboss.