Antonino is commited to a mental asylum where he is the passive witness of the time going by, a diary takes his moods, his physical suffering. He spends whole days alone, drawing multicoloured butterflies. After more than twenty years he is discharged and can savour the taste of freedom. The town mayor assigns him a flat in a council house and while looking for it he meets his neighbour, Andrea, who helps him. Andrea is an artist who is living an existential crisis which hinders him to create new works and to keep to the agreements with his manager, Harold, a cynic businessman dealing in the world of art...