Born in 1972 in Kansas, 8-year-olds Neil McCormick and Brian Lackey are sexually abused by their baseball coach. Both boys are targets for abuse due to their dysfunctional families: Neil's single mother, Ellen, is neglectful and preoccupied with a string of boyfriends, while Brian's parents are on the verge of divorce.
Björn, un garçonnet de huit ans s'est enfui et a disparu après s'être disputé avec son frère Nick, âgé d'un an de plus que lui. À la suite de ce traumatisme, sa mère l'a rejeté. Nick Cafmeyer, maintenant enquêteur, reste perturbé par ce drame. Il habite dans le voisinage d'un pédophile notoire, Ivan Plettinckx, qui a été relâché après avoir été suspecté de cette disparition.
In the poor Adelaide suburb of Salisbury North, 16-year-old Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) lives with his distressed mother, Elizabeth Harvey (Louise Harris), and his brothers — including Troy (Anthony Groves), who rapes Jamie. One day, his mother's boyfriend takes indecent photographs of the boys. When the police are reluctant to intervene, Elizabeth is contacted by Barry (Richard Green), a gay man who introduces her to John (Daniel Henshall). John, who despises paedophiles and homosexuals, deals with the boyfriend by continually harassing him until he leaves town. John begins to assume the role of Jamie's father figure.
At a police station in Niagara Falls, Ontario, new detective Jeffrey Cornwall is sitting down for a job interview with Nicole Dunlop who works in the Internet Child Exploitation Unit. He recoils in disgust after seeing the images related to open cases and Nicole tells him that these are the images he will have to see every day. Meanwhile, Niagara Falls resident Matthew Lane picks his nine year old daughter Cassandra up from the arena after her figure skating practice. He comments that her wearing one white skate and one black skate is an unnecessary gimmick given her skill. On the way back, Matthew stops to pick up pie, leaving Cassandra in the car. Minutes later he returns to find her missing and calls out to no success. He reports the abduction to the police station where Dunlop and Cornwall are assigned to the case. Cassandra's mother Tina Lane arrives and breaks down in a fit of fury directed at Matthew.
In 1947, Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons), a European professor of French literature, travels to the United States to take a teaching position in New Hampshire. He rents a room in the home of widow Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith), largely because he sees her adolescent daughter Dolores (Dominique Swain), also called "Lo", while touring the house. Obsessed from boyhood with girls of this age (whom he calls "nymphets"), Humbert is immediately smitten with Lo and marries Charlotte just to be near her.
The film opens with a funeral for a young woman; the deceased is Dawn Wiener, the protagonist from Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse, who went to college, gained a lot of weight, became pregnant, and committed suicide. Her brother Mark (Matthew Faber, reprising his role) reads the eulogy while Dawn's tearful parents (Angela Pietropinto and Bill Buell) sit in the audience.
Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux) and her older sister, Elena (Roxane Mesquida) are vacationing with their parents on the French seaside. Bored of staying in their vacation home, the two walk into town while discussing relationships and their virginity. Although the highly attractive Elena has been promiscuous, she is saving herself for someone who loves her, while heavy-set, overweight Anaïs thinks it is better to lose one's virginity to a "nobody" just to get it over with.
In August 1953, the 13-year-old Tom Allen attends a Catholic juniorate / (junior seminary) in Melbourne, Australia. Students and Brothers face individual challenges of faith and self-restraint.
Persona begins with images of camera equipment and projectors lighting up and projecting dozens of brief cinematic glimpses, including a crucifixion, an erect penis, a tarantula spider, clips from a comedic silent-film reel first seen in Bergman's Prison (depicting a man trapped in a room, being chased by Death and Satan), and the slaughter of a lamb. The last, and longest, glimpse features a boy who wakes up in a hospital next to several corpses, reading Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time ("Vår Tids Hjälte" in the film), and caressing a blurry, transient image that shifts between Elisabet and/or Alma's faces.
Au milieu des années 70, le concierge de l'orphelinat religieux pour garçons Saint-Vincent à Terre-Neuve est à l'origine d'une enquête de police qui révèle que de nombreux enfants y sont victimes de sévices corporels et sexuels. Les frères incriminés sont simplement relevés de leurs fonctions, la collusion entre la hiérarchie catholique et différents membres du gouvernement ayant abouti au classement de l'affaire. Quinze ans plus tard, un inspecteur rouvre le dossier et le gouvernement nomme une commission d'enquête. Les enfants abusés, devenus des adultes traumatisés, viennent enfin témoigner publiquement de leur calvaire.
The film chronicles O'Grady's years as a priest in Northern California, where he committed his crimes. After being convicted of child molestation and serving seven years in prison, O'Grady was deported to his native Ireland. Berg interviewed him there in 2005 for the film. Additionally, the film presents trial documents, videotaped depositions, and interviews with activists, theologians, psychologists, and lawyers; it suggests that Church officials were aware of O'Grady's crimes, and they took steps to conceal them to protect him and the church.
Fourteen-year-old Annie Cameron lives in suburban Chicago. She enjoys a healthy relationship with her family. On her birthday, her parents give her a laptop. When she meets Charlie in an online chat room, she establishes an instant connection with him. At first, Charlie states that he is sixteen years old. Over time, as the two bond by sending phone text messages and through instant messaging, he bumps his age up to eighteen, twenty, then twenty-five. Annie is taken aback at first, but then dismisses these concerns. Her parents are not aware of her infatuation, or the threat Charlie poses, and Annie even deceives them a bit, as she continues the online relationship, not wanting to end things with him under the belief that they are in love.
Abel Tiffauges (Malkovich) is a simple Frenchman at the start of World War II, who loves animals and children. The first part of the film recalls his childhood at a Catholic school for boys, in where he wishes to Saint Christopher that the school, which he sees as a prison, is burned down. By irony of fate, while Abel is being disciplined for spilling lamp oil on the chapel floor, his friend Nestor accidentally sets fire to the building, burning it down as he wished. From that day on, Abel is convinced that fate is on his side, and that it will protect him from anything.