Italy, September 1943. After the armistice and the flight of the King, the war theaters of the North-East see the advance of Tito's partisans. At the center of the story, in this dramatic historical context, the figure of Norma Cossetto, a young Istrian student, barbarously raped, killed and thrown into a foiba by the Tito partisans.

The life and times of Pippo Fava, a Sicilian journalist who fought the Mafia through his local newspaper in the '70s and early '80s, meeting an untimely end.

Catania, 1960s. At the beach resort run by the charming Rozzo Finocchiaro, Stefano, a blind elderly man, observes and comments with ironic and acerbic commentary on the behavior of the people who frequent the beach and whose lives are intertwined. Passing under his scrutiny are the industrialist Alfredo Condorelli—married to the wealthy Maria Rita and engaged in a clandestine affair with his secretary Rosalba—the stifling Rosa—wife of the former playboy Alfredo—the four bigwigs Roberto, Michele, Armando, and Rocco; the musician Gregorio Alacci; the fallen boss Jano Suarez; the Lanzafame family; and Peppino Di Paternò—a fifty-year-old married to the statuesque Ulla.