The Bastards have left the city behind. Their house in the countryside smells of nothing but summer. Five girls and five boys living in the moment, for the moment. No outsider comes around here, and all the insiders take turns standing guard, kissing each other, playing dead. They are still kids. They are your kids. They are our Bastards.

A lawyer, who represents the German government against the Greek reparation claims for Nazi crimes in World War II, travels to Greece and meets one of the remaining survivors of the Kalavryta massacre that took place in 1943.

Greece. A small, impoverished city-state dominated by a massive refinery—its only source of income: oil. The men, all armed, hold absolute power. Their leader, Nikos, is gravely ill and must arrange his succession. Shock spreads when he includes his protégé, Maria, among the contenders. The fate of this young woman—unaware of the most tragic part of her family’s past—will be turned upside down by the arrival of Eleni, a singer at the town’s bar.