This is the story that could be behind the famous photo of Alexander Rodchenko "Stairs". Moscow, 1929. The end of the era of constructivism in the USSR. A young woman comes to visit a middle-aged woman to resolve their complicated relationship.

A romantic tale depicting the beautiful and tragic love between a young man and woman from aristocratic families who are caught in the crossfire of the February 26 Incident.

A woman’s life unravels after she becomes addicted to throwing herself down flights of stairs.

Upon the death of his grandfather and playmate, Bruno, an 8-year-old boy, embarks on a journey in a magical world, trying to finish the unfinished story he was building with his grandfather to become a king.

Fruit falling down stairs

The film comprises one hundred sequences showing a location in the city of Geneva, Switzerland. In 1994, over a period of one hundred days, one hundred white wooden staircases were installed around the city to be climbed by the public. At the top of each staircase was a simple hole framing a "living picture postcard", a perfect "cinema-image by Peter Greenaway" accompanied by a commentary of one sentence in French and English, printed below the viewfinder. Greenaway's idea was to create a reflection on location in cinema and to "take films out of the theatres".

On an island in the South Seas, derelict Tony Heritage is rescued from savage natives by trader and ship captain Rod McLean, but repays him by stealing Rod’s money and fleeing to France. There, Heritage marries a young French woman named Joie Malet, but her father, Captain Jean Malet, having discovered his miscreant past, snatches Joie from the altar stairs and takes her to a South Sea island where he has been posted. Tony Heritage follows, but Capt. Malet keeps him away from Joie by giving him a job on another island, helping Rod McLean build a new trading post.

Five 16-year-old orphans wake up to find themselves in a strange building with nothing but endless flights of stairs leading in every direction, seemingly infinite. To find an exit, the five teenagers must learn to deal with the others’ disparate personalities, the lack of privacy and comfort, their clear helplessness, and a machine that only feeds them under increasingly ominous situations.

Twelve-year-old Isabel and her mother, who was a famous political singer, had to escape Chile after the 1973 military coup. Isabel’s father stayed behind fighting in the underground. For six years, they have lived in a new apartment building in East Berlin. At first, the neighbors made an effort to welcome them, but later became more distant. Isabel does not feel at home in the strange country. Not even her friendship to Philip, the neighbors’ son, can change her mind. Almost every day, Isabel sits on the stairs waiting for a letter from her father, from whom she has not heard for many years.