During the war, four bricklayers go to Terrarossa to build council houses. The youngest of them is Filippo, a boy who loves telling stories.
Lifestyle in the village is really behind: people light their houses with pine-tree chips, they live in caves together with goats and feed themselves on chestnuts. And the flour supposed to be given by the Government never arrives due to some strange intrigues.
The other bricklayers incite people to rebel. In this hot atmosphere, further events animate the story: Filippo's escape and a flood.
The film is taken from Saverio Strati's novel, about which critic Geno Pampaloni wrote: "Like in Alvaro, the world of protest and the world of suffering intertwine deeply in a feeling for tradition that, in fact, coincides with poetry. His words are calm and final, they are like powerful music, or the language of fathers… There's nothing less 'experimental' than the way he narrates: his pain is an ancient pain."