Ferrara, 1936-1941. Giordano and Mariuccia, brother and sister, form a consolidated trio of friends with Giulio. The first two belong to the agrarian middle class, while the third is of more humble origins. When Fascism raged with the proclamation of the Empire and the war of Spain, they were about twenty years old. Behind their apparent light-heartedness, there is a growing restlessness: Giordano, in contrast to his father, a convinced assertor of the regime, matures a convinced anti-fascist conscience, Giulio adheres to Fascism in an increasingly critical way and at the same time conceives an impossible love for Mariuccia. In the end the outbreak of the Second World War definitively divides the destinies of the three young people.