Iole is from Elba, an island of mines and iron. The bombing of 1943 forced her to face the German occupation alone and the long months before the liberation. Laundress and daughter of an anarchist who taught her the importance of not having masters, she is not afraid to live her body and indulge its appetites, whether with a soldier leaving for the front or with Mario, the young neighbor full of promise. The year 1944 arrives and with it the landing of the allies. Among them is also Ibrah, Senegalese rifleman of the French colonial troops. The population celebrates but immediately realizes that the following hours will be the most dramatic to endure and the most difficult to tell.

There are bodies to tie the threads of this story together: Iole's body and Ibrah's body, the bodies of the women and those of the soldiers. And there are questions that have the unusual task of remaining what they are: just questions.

Paola Cereda is inspired by an episode of our recent past, forgotten by most people and yet emblematic, to tell the story of flesh and iron, fragility and acts of courage that move History.