Hunger Pangs

The Story of Edith Cavell, who was shot early in WW1 for sheltering British soldiers while working as a nurse in Brussells.

In 1941 an Italian regiment known as the Savoy Cavalry is sent by Mussolini to Russia to assist the German invasion. After crossing an extensive area of Soviet territory the men arrive at a village that seems deserted. A patrol sent on reconnaissance comes under machine-gun fire from the top of a bell-tower. During the fighting that follows a young woman named Kalina is captured by the Italians, but in order to win favour with the local people she is spared. A peaceful rapport then builds up between Italian soldiers and Russian villagers, and a special fondness grows between Kalina and Captain Valli, the colonel's godson. Suddenly, the men receive orders to depart and make their way to the front line which is under Russian siege. However, the German commander does not believe the Italian presence will be effective, so on a point of honour the Savoy Cavalry decide to demonstrate their worth. Moving to the front they charge into the enemy batteries and eventually overwhelm them. Sadly, few survive the heroic charge.

In the early 1940s, the 359th Brigade of the Eighth Route Army, under extremely difficult conditions of lacking clothing and food, carried a firm belief in the victory of the revolutionary cause and created a true and tragic story of miracle of life.

The story of wounded soldiers and their nurses at a Philippines army hospital during World War II.

Oton, a young boy, is growing up while his hometown Ljubljana changes, from 1934, when King Alexander of Yugoslavia is killed in France, through first the Italian and then the German occupations of the city, until the arrival of Communism. Oton learns the difference between men and women; the experience makes him swear eternal love to his friend Marjana. His hopes are dasher, however, when the Italian occupying forces invade Ljubljana in 1941. Oton, at that time in grammar school, hates the Italians and joins the underground resistance movement. Marjana slowly changes and forgets her old friends. She draws away from Oton as she falls madly in love with Giorgio, an Italian officer lodging in the apartment of Oton's parents. With time, the Italian occupying troops become increasingly brutal. The only place where nothing seems to change is the nightclub Purgatory, with prostitute Anita as its brightest star, where both the townspeople and the Italian soldiers come to forget the horrors of the war...