Upon his death, a young African director, Abramo Malonga, bequeathed his first and last unfinished film to his former teacher, the Italian director Fausto Morelli. Morelli, who after seeing the work, is confronted with a confusing, complex and, in part, incomprehensible work. Helped by the young widow of Abramo Malonga and by the notes left by his deceased friend, and again by his personal memories, the Italian director attempts to reconstruct and complete the film. Fausto's work progresses with difficulty, not only because of the problems the film poses for him, but because of the problems that arise in his daily life. After a long crisis, after which he returns to Pisa with his former party companions and abandons himself to love and his own solitude, Fausto takes up the work of his African friend, closing it with a final invention, in which , with a bold metaphor, has refigured the human condition of our time.

A blue-collar worker on New York's depressed waterfront finds his life changed after he saves a woman attempting suicide.

The picture is set during Battle of Greece and Crete Battle in 1941, after the fall of the mainland when the Germans entered Athens.