At Disperata, a small town in Southern Italy, the melancholy mayor Filippo Pisanelli feels terribly unfit for his role. Only a love of poetry and his passion for the literature lessons he gives to prison inmates admit a chink of light into his general state of depression. In jail he meets Pati, a small-time criminal from his own town. Pati and his brother Angiolino were dreaming of becoming the mafia bosses of Capo di Leuca, but the encounter with art changes everything and an unusual friendship between the three men will lead them to make courageous choices.

Salento in southern Italy. A small family-run textile factory is forced to close and three generations of women must now struggle to keep the wolf from the door. In order to settle their debts their home is sold. Now that her brother has emigrated, it falls to energetic Adele to find a way out of their crisis.

The wealthy businessman Vincenzo realizes that he is a father too absent, but also that his two sons and 1aughter are spoiled and unable to support themselves economically. So Vincenzo stages their fraudulent bankruptcy and runs with their children in Taranto, in his old house. The boys are struggling to settle, but Vincenzo is confident about them and hope that they will soon find a job in the city. Meanwhile, an impostor blackmailer, who wants to marry the daughter of Vincenzo, arrives in Puglia, to expose the scam.