A mute Scottish woman arrives in colonial New Zealand for an arranged marriage. Her husband refuses to move her beloved piano, giving it to neighbor George Baines, who agrees to return the piano in exchange for lessons. As desire swirls around the duo, the wilderness consumes the European enclave.
When her family moves from New York City to New Jersey, an 11-year-old girl navigates new friends, feelings, and the beginning of adolescence.
Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.
A pregnant Colombian teenager becomes a drug mule to make some desperately needed money for her family.
Sissi is now the empress of Austria and attempts to learn etiquette. While she is busy being empress she also has to deal with her difficult new mother-in-law, while the arch-duchess Sophie is trying to tell the emperor how to rule and also Sissi how to be a mother.
Homer is an orphan who was never adopted, becoming the favorite of orphanage director Dr. Larch. Dr. Larch imparts his full medical knowledge on Homer, who becomes a skilled, albeit unlicensed, physician. But Homer yearns for a self-chosen life outside the orphanage. What will Homer learn about life and love in the cider house? What of the destiny that Dr. Larch has planned for him?
Or shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has found her a job as a house cleaner. The call of the quick money on the street is tough for Ruthie to ignore. Or's emotions roil further when the mother of the youth she's in love with comes to the flat to warn her off. With love fading and Ruthie perhaps beyond help, Or's choices narrow.
Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.
After a one night stand with Alex, Isabel realizes that she is pregnant and they decide to get married. However, along with the marriage comes compromise of one's own cultural traditions.
Based on Mariane Pearl's account of the terrifying and unforgettable story of her husband, Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl's life and death.
Sylvain and Pierre have been running from the law ever since a custody battle with their mother pushed their father Yves into hiding ten years ago. But now that they’re older, the two brothers are road-weary and eager to take advantage of the perks of young adulthood. When the authorities discover their whereabouts, they are forced to move yet again and Pierre, the elder, disappears. Alone with his father on an island in the Loire River, Sylvain meets Gilda: his first girl, his first crush, and the first stop on his way to “the good life” – his own.
Ruth is a pregnant woman on a killing spree. It's her misanthropic unborn baby dictating Ruth's actions, holding society responsible for the absence of a father.
Fourteen-year-old Jasmin longs to be near her biological mother, Eva. Following her mother’s release from prison, an excursion into the country together becomes a first test for the fledgling mother-daughter relationship. They smoke, dance and stroll together – the mood is promising. But time and again, it is revealed that their needs and expectations are light years apart. For the moment, neither Eva nor Jasmin seem up to the task of fulfilling each other’s need for identity and support. (Talea is Italian for scion, a detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody plant, used in grafting.)
Madre tells the story of 16-year old Andrea who leaves a poor neighbourhood in Colombian Medellin to take part in the casting for a porno movie.
A 15-year old Vika has to grow up. Only yesterday she was just a teenager and now she’s a mom. Catching sidelong scowls of adults, being mocked by peers, unbearable responsibility – it seems like the entire world is against her and Vika is all by herself. More truly, she has a child now, she’s not all alone.
A rich widower impregnates a poor young woman and dumps her. Her brother, member of a resistance group during the Occupation, tries to mend things up.
Realizing that her unknown biological father is probably alive, Sofia leaves behind a degrading and humiliating life and embarks on a journey with her naive half-sister Olivia, both girls hoping to find the caring father figure they so desperately need.
Mrs. Burgess explains menstruation to her teen-aged daughter by showing her diagrams in a medical book. Her daughter-in-law Mary then tells Mrs. Burgess that she wishes that she, too, knew more about her body. She also reveals that she may be expecting a baby and is apprehensive about her safety and the changes that a new baby will bring to her life.
A middle aged Aboriginal woman lives on her own in the community. Trapped in routine, Grace is determined to remain lonely and bored as punishment for her sins. With her days lost in the humdrum of a life alone and the mistakes of the past, Grace waits – for death or change, whichever comes first.