Inspired by global phenomenon of military wives choirs, the story celebrates a band of misfit women who form a choir on a military base. As unexpected bonds of friendship flourish, music and laughter transform their lives, helping each other to overcome their fears for loved ones in combat.
Makoto Mioya, a highly successful Japanese author and publisher, has a life-threatening, near-death experience. Powerful spiritual beings with whom he has communicated most of his adult life visit Makoto to remind him he has the power within to heal himself. Reborn, Makoto commits his life to sharing the almighty wisdom he receives from the spiritual realm. As doubters, including some of his own family, challenge and question his new-found ardor, Makoto must find a way to connect with his family and the 'family of man' to inspire a better world.
Vitalina Varela takes its title from the name of its lead actress, a Cape Verdean woman who, as per usual with Costa's non-professional actors, plays a fictionalized version of herself. Vitalina first appeared in an episode in the director's previous film, Horse Money (Wavelengths 2015), wherein she recounted how her husband had left their homeland nearly 25 years ago to work in Lisbon - a separation that became permanent when she finally arrived on the continent, three days after his funeral. In Vitalina Varela, Costa refracts and expands that episode to place us firmly within his heroine's stoic point of view, capturing her extraordinary strength and resilience as she navigates the scanty physical traces her husband left behind, discovers his secret, illicit life, and encounters the other lives that darken the shadows of the Fontainhas that once was.
Dafne is a witty young woman with Down syndrome, who is a spring of contagious energy. She is fiercely independent, but still lives with her parents, Luigi and Maria. Suddenly Maria dies and the family's balance is shattered. Luigi falls into depression, tormented by the future, by the moment when he will leave his daughter alone - Thanks to her job and her lifelong friends, Dafne instead deals with the loss with the thoughtlessness of a child and the bravery of a young woman, and tries to shake her father up. Until one day something unexpected happens: they decide to leave together for a hike in the mountains to the town where Maria was born. Along the walk, they will discover a lot about each other and they will learn together how to go beyond their limits.
Presenting the life of two gay men who are in love, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan depicts their struggle to convince their families to accept the relationship. But things are never as easy as they seem and one of the boy's family decides to get him married to a girl. Will their 'unconventional' love prevail.