Jani Budi, sixty, after serving his sentence is released from prison in an unspecified city in Italy and embarks on a ship to return to his homeland, Albania. He is solitary, thoughtful…in the old railway station in Durres he takes the train to Tirana.
During the trip, the landscape that stands out in front of him is not as he remembered. He walks through the streets of Tirana, which also changed a lot and, excited, moves closer to his old house which hasn’t seen him for eighteen years. From his neighbour, Marko, he discovers some upsetting truths: his wife died just after his arrest and his son, Andi, has become a rich and corrupted politician. The pain for the loss of his wife is immense, but Jani feels particularly hurt by his son who, during those long years, has never tried to have any kind of contact with his father.
He meets his son who openly confesses his intention to not have any kind of relationship with him , an ex-convict, as this could only do harm to his reputation. Together with Marko, he returns to his small village, Shipska. When he arrives what comes up to his eyes is an old, abandoned village in ruins, inhabited by very few people. Time seems to stand to the Eighties.
The house where he was born is now occupied by a woman and her two kids: a female child born with the Down Syndrome and a male one 9 y.o. The woman is armed as she is afraid for her life and for the lives of her children as well. In fact, as a revenge, she has killed the 17 y.o. son of a man who raped her undefeated daughter and she is hiding here, in this forsaken village. Jani doesn’t feel like sending her away, her two kids remind him of his grandchildren he cannot meet. In them he gradually finds the family affection and is brought back to life.
At night the woman performs stripping for the elderly of the little village. They look at her from their windows giving her a few coins for the show. Their relationship becomes tense when she finds out he is an ex-convict.
One of the kids shows signs of radiation poisoning, caused by toxic waste hidden under the earth where children play every day.
What upsets him more is the fact that the waste was hidden there by his son, Andi, who made a fortune thanks to his shady deals.
Jani decides to go back to Tirana and talk to his son, who is now forced to meet his father who wants to know the truth about the toxic waste. Once known the truth Jani threatens to denounce his son unless he drains the ground and pays all the medical expenses to those who have been poisoned.
Andi is forced to swear in order not to feel guilty in front of his father’s eyes. As soon as Andi walks out of the hospice where he wants to lock his father in, someone shoots him and his father is upset.
When the shooters go away, Andy stands up and tells his father not to go back to his hometown as the house and the land do not belong to him anymore.
Jani feels like stabbing his son, but doesn’t do it. He goes to the press to denounce the fact of the toxic waste but the journalists think he is a crazy old man.
Suffering, disappointed and tired he goes back to Marko’s house where he hides documents proving Andi’s guilt.
The documents have been collected by Andi’s collaborators to be used in case they break up.
Jani tries to meet Andi again but he does not want to know anything about him. Before leaving for Shipska, Jani calls his son on the phone informing him that he has the documents about his shady deals and to prove it he tells him to go to the place where the buildings have been built irregularly.
In a rage Andi follows the path written by his father but he only finds notice of denounce to alarm the inhabitants.
Jani goes back to the woman and her sons in order to find some peace and confesses himself…
Eighteen years before he left to Italy with the seventeen-year-old Andi. One night the police, after breaking into the flat, found some drug. He took the guilt on him because he realized that the drug belonged to Andi…
Once come to Shipska, Andi is faced by his father. Andi wants to take the documents but can’t have them. He does not give up and comes back later with his acolytes. Jani, like a lone wolf, looks at them and then disappears in the wood. Andi goes to prison and his father goes there several times to meet him but Andi refuses to see him.
Jani waits and waits…
The son goes out of prison and his father is there, waiting for him.
They look at each other for a while but Andi walks away without turning.
Nonetheless his father follows him…
Andi gets on a car which came to fetch him leaving his father alone, walking…