An old film director unhappy with the movie he's shooting about a Hungarian circus stranded in Rome during the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising faces divorce from his producer wife and other problems.

On Christmas Eve, three friends dressed as Santa Clauses are arrested in what seems to be a burglary and taken to the police, accused of being the infamous "Santa Claus Gang". While trying to prove their innocence, the trio explains why they found themselves in such a strange situation.

Five young men wait for something at the end of their teenage towards maturity.

Michele is a Communist MP who loses his memory in a car crash—although nobody seems to notice. Over the course of a water polo match ahead of election day, he begins to remember his past life, revealing the picture of a man whose personal and political identity crisis mirrors the one of Italian communism.