Swaying Mariko

Asahiyama Zoo in Hokkaido, is the northernmost zoo in Japan. The unpopular zoo welcomes a new zoo keeper, young Yoshida (Yasuhi Nakamura), who has more affection for insects than people after years of being bullied at school when he was young. Yoshida soon realizes that Asahiyama Zoo is facing a financial crisis and the zoo director Takizawa (Toshiyuki Nishida) has been doing everything in his power to save the zoo from closing down. Moved by Takizawa's passion, Yoshida and other zoo keepers came to share the zoo director's belief that one's dreams can come true, and together they tackle this seemingly impossible task of revitalizing Asahiyama. A breakthrough arrives in the form of Behavioral Exhibition, a method that is pioneered by Ashiyama's zoo keepers and which eventually makes the zoo renowned throughout the world.

Businessman Vlad Artemiev returns to his native home, where he learns about the death of his father, with whom he has not been in touch for almost a quarter of a century. Memories of the past prevent Vlad from moving on, so he tries to correct all his mistakes. What was hiding behind the long silence of the closest men?

Keith Drummond, a penniless youth from a well-known family, is advised by John Lathrop to put on a wealthy front and work hard in order to be successful. With money borrowed from Lathrop, Keith takes only the first part of the advice and plunges into a social whirl. He marries nouveau riche Helen Baxter, but one day he denounces his whole way of life and leaves to work in the western oil fields. They are reunited when Keith establishes himself and Helen is reduced to poverty.

The hopeless love between Maria Pentagiotissa and a man belonging to a different social class.

'All the Children are Sleeping' is an intimate and heartbreaking study of abject loss, which clearly plays as an allegorical tale for the events that have shaped Western culture since the attacks of 9/11.