SYNOPSIS Official statistics published on the major national newspapers in 1989 proclaimed Nardodipace the poorest municipality in Italy. The village is located in the middle of the region Calabria - the poorest among Italian regions - and its territory and economy have been affected by a series of floods in the past few years. It suddenly became a national case, regularly rousing the interest of press and television. In spite of these extreme aspects the case of Nardodipace is not isolated, for it is the emblem of the condition characterizing an entire area of Italy: systematic destruction of peasant civilization, organized crime suffocating any economic enterprise, absence of the State, and the desperation of the youth who are still compelled -- as happened one century ago -- to emigrate in order to gain a life perspective. The point is that poverty, in one of the wealthiest nations in the Western world, no longer means hunger or lack of hygienic infrastructures, but the impossibility of building a more decent and more righteous life. This film tells the story of the constantly unfulfilled hopes of Nardodipace and the rest of Southern Italy, of the courage and generous illusions of its inhabitants, and of the many betrayals committed by politics and history. Today, in the quarters of the village, among old and young, the feeling of the end of a world is palpable, along with the blurry expectation for something that can miraculously reverse the situation. The ancient ...