The Reading Machine

A wannabe film director becomes embroiled in a battle against the laws of time and space when his attempts to recreate the iconic black and white, photograph-only, time travel film, La Jetée, spiral out of control.

What does a bankrupt poet with no desire to live have to say about life?

An impoverished girl tries to sell matches on NYE. Shivering with cold and unable to sell her wares, she sits in a sheltered nook. Striking a match to keep warm, she sees things in the flame.

Told in flashback, Depression-era bum Dan McGinty is recruited by the city's political machine to help with vote fraud. His great aptitude for this brings rapid promotion from "the boss," who finally decides he'd be ideal as a new, nominally "reform" mayor; but this candidacy requires marriage. His in-name-only marriage to honest Catherine proves the beginning of the end for dishonest Dan...

A sheltered heiress is abducted on her wedding night by a trio of cheap hoods.

Believing that an unexpected inheritance will bring them happiness, a married couple instead finds their relationship strained to the breaking point.

Larita Filton is named as correspondent in a scandalous divorce case. She escapes to France to rebuild her life where she meets John Whittaker. They are later married, but John's well-to-do family finds out Larita's secret.

Global panic ensues when it is revealed that a mysterious UFO is actually a giant turkey-like bird that flies at supersonic speed and has no regard for life or architecture.

Aging small-time conman Augusto works with two younger men: Roberto, who desires to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Bruno, nicknamed Picasso. Through a series of mishaps and personal entanglements, things go badly for Augusto.

The Tramp and his dog companion struggle to survive in the inner city.

A production company begins casting for its next feature, and an up-and-coming actress named Rose tries to manipulate her filmmaker boyfriend, Alex, into giving her a screen test. Alex's wife, Emma, knows about the affair and is considering divorce, while Rose's girlfriend secretly spies on her and attempts to sabotage the relationship. The four storylines in the film were each shot in one take and are shown simultaneously, each taking up a quarter of the screen.