The famous movie genres – war pictures, westerns, etc – are about adults, but in this chapter Jane Fonda narrates the story of 18 films about children in film, from Germany, Belgium, Mongolia, Sweden, Russia, Canada, Senegal, Argentina and Scotland. We've all seen overblown films, but what are the visual and story lessons we can learn from Claire Denis, Maria Louisa Memberg, Kinuyo Tanaka, Agnes Varda, Valeska Grisbach and Desiree Akhavan about keeping things simple? How have filmmakers like Ava Du Vernay and Kathryn Bigelow in America, Sarah Maldorer in Mozambique, Leni Riefentahl in Germany, Drahomira Vihanova in the Czech Republic, and their editors, pushed the techniques of editing to their limits?

Is cinema the art of point of view? Jocelyn Moorhouse, Ida Lupino, Norway's Edith Carlmar, Sofia Coppola, Italy's Liliana Cavani, Kelly Reichart, the great Larisa Shepitko, Jennifer Kent and other great directors demonstrate the art of POV in films. If close ups give movies their intensity, films from Belgium, Hungary, Australia, Finland, China, America, France, Germany and Ukraine, shot over ten decades, show how best to do that intensity. One of the great movie stars, India's Sharmila Tagore, narrates this bold chapter that looks at dreams in films, from Wayne's World, to experimental film, to Jane Campion, Sally Potter, Bulgaria and silent movies.

Bodies in cinema can be enticing, dancing or brutalised. Jane Fonda narrates this chapter about how the great directors – including Agnes Varda, Andrea Arnold, Iran's Marva Nabili, Finland's Pirjo Honkasalo, Marta Meszaros and Poland's Wanda Jakubowska – have filmed bodies. From bodies to sex – the most controversial aspect of film. In this chapter Diane Kurys, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Jamie Babbit, Safi Faye, Athena Rachel Tsangari, Alison DeVere, Carine Adler, Donna Deitch, Miranda July, Lucia Puenzo, Maren Ade, Chantal Akerman and others show the best ways of showing sex on screen.