Synopsis

At first, there's an oblong blackish spot that moves. You have to wait a few seconds: a white flash, a shake of the camera, and the film becomes sharper.” The stain is a long line of prisoners, guarded by a squad of armed guards; the footage is a 1920s documentary about one of the first Soviet gulags in the Solovki Islands, an archipelago in the White Sea, in northern Russia. A century later, three Florentine friends—no longer young but not yet truly adults—depart for the Solovki Islands to work on the restoration of an ancient Orthodox monastery. A few days later, they disappear without a trace. While the police dismiss the case as an accident, freelance journalist Alessandro Capace decides to go looking for them. Capace is a thirty-six-year-old "brilliant failure" who also lives in Florence, "this provincial city sold off by the kilo to international tourists, this open-air junk market, this waterless Venice, this amusement park tailored for American teenagers shuffling in flip-flops, this Renaissance Cancun where one always has the impression that, apart from the waiters, no one really works." His articles and his tenacity will keep the memory alive. The mysterious disappearance of the three friends is drawing attention. Where have they gone? Did they run away, or did someone make them disappear? And in both cases: why? Are they really friends, as years of living together, from high school onward, would lead one to believe?