They Returned is a beautifully touching and unnerving story about the unexplained disappearance of three children, two boys and one girl, and their reappearance three days later in a semi-autistic state. Not even the children themselves are able to help anyone understand what happened.

Eight years after a cataclysm and disease ravaged the human race, leaving just one in every ten surviving, all social structures have crumbled like sand castles. All remaining animals have been consumed and no sowing has yet been possible. It is Man at his most basic, destitute level.

North Argentina, 1961. Only a few priests and interns remain in a secluded run-down boys' religious boarding school. Suddenly and unannounced, Father Martin arrives, whose intentions are not as clear as he claims.

A father urges his son not to disgrace him by failing to come first in a race.