Across the Blue Sea

A coming of age story of members of a Nahal group, volunteering in a kibbutz named "Kissufim" ("Yearnings" in Hebrew), on the outskirts of the Gaza strip in the 70s, who meet with the hardships of love, sexuality, morality and responsibility near the end of their military service and the beginning of their civilian adult lives.

J.P. Tannen (Jon Voight) wants a second chance to be a father to his children ... but someone else has taken his place. Determined not to just be a friendly 'uncle' in their lives, he gets permission from his ex-wife Kathleen (Millie Perkins) and her new husband (Richard Crenna) to take the kids on a Mediterranean cruise. On the journey he comes to realise it's not that easy and, feeling overwhelmed, begins to doubt his abilities until a tragedy back home forces him to become the father he always hoped to be.

Mladen (44) Belgrade born, is a timeshare salesman at Montenegrin Holiday resort. He is having an affair with his colleague, Sonja (40), who is married to Metod (50) the chief sales manager who learns about his wife's infidelity. He assigns Mladen the toughest client - Omer, a Bosnian war veteran, who doesn't try to hide his aversion to Mladen. Everything becomes hopeless when Omer's three year old son Svendy falls over the edge of the hotel terrace and ends up in a hospital. Grim mood that prevails among the potential buyers is about to ruin the sales. Sonja and Metod blackmail Mladen to continue the sales at the hospital while Omer and his wife are waiting for their son's operation.

Meena, a 12-year-old living in a mining village in the English Midlands in 1972, is the daughter of Indian parents who've come to England to give her a better life. This idyllic existence is upset by the arrival in the village of Anita Rutter and her dysfunctional family.

Jim Morris never made it out of the minor leagues before a shoulder injury ended his pitching career twelve years ago. Now a married-with-children high-school chemistry teacher and baseball coach in Texas, Jim's team makes a deal with him: if they win the district championship, Jim will try out with a major-league organization. The bet proves incentive enough for the team, and they go from worst to first, making it to state for the first time in the history of the school. Jim, forced to live up to his end of the deal, is nearly laughed off the try-out field--until he gets onto the mound, where he confounds the scouts (and himself) by clocking successive 98 mph fastballs, good enough for a minor-league contract with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Jim's still got a lot of pitches to throw before he makes it to The Show, but with his big-league dreams revived, there's no telling where he could go.