Two brothers are in conflict over the way the Venetian lagoon has been transformed, and the identity of the city and its residents has drastically changed.
What is the "feeling" of a city? Is it the roads, the light that illuminates them, the people that live there and their stories? It's all these things, but also something else, something requiring time and attention to be understood. The film goes in search of this feeling exploring the city of Venice and its lagoon, prying into its less-known corners and listening to the stories of six citizens: a hotel waitress, an old archaeologist, a pensioner from Mestre, a painter/fisherman, an apartment burglar and a young boy.
Marco Paolini interviews Luigi Meneghello about growing up under fascism, his involvement with the Italian resistance movement, his later self-exile, acclaimed literary work and its relationship with dialect.
Marco Paolini interviews Mario Rigoni Stern about—among other things—his well-known experience as a soldier on the Eastern front during WWII, culminating in the infamous retreat of the Italian troops, the difficult reintegration into civilian life after the war, his relationship with his literary work and with his ancestral land, the Asiago Plateau.