Fifty-year-old, Sardinian-born Silvio – a lover of jazz music and karaoke shows – manages the “Stella d’Oro” boarding house. Built on the Swiss side of Lake Maggiore more than a hundred years ago, the place has been accommodating less and less tourists, and a few asylum seekers. But its days are numbered: it is threatened by a property restoration project for a new private housing estate. Its few remaining days depict the passing of life in a place of encounter for the stories and dreams of people coming from different locations and cultures.

Stella ciao is the portrait of the last year and a half in the existence of a peculiar place, a unique slice of life as it was seized right before its destruction.