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.

Is it possible to think of nothing? The absence of expression on Fausto's face as he stands in front of his machine in the factory tells us that it is. When Ivan asks him the same thing it turns out that a thought has crept into his head: an extreme thought, dark, beyond human standards. It is this violent thought that is the origin of the encounter between Fausto and Ivan. In a remote valley eaten away by industrial towns, they are confronted with the impossibility of escape from their everyday existence.