The winter of 1944, the darkest hours of the war in Italy. The country is split in two. Battles rage everywhere, with the local population trapped in the middle, suffering the cold, the lack of food, and the brutal round-ups that are ongoing. In the Alps, near the escape routes to Switzerland, a young partisan fighter who goes by the name Gio survives a bloody ambush that wipes out his brigade. The order from the command down in the plain is clear: hold the position and try to survive until the allies return and resume fighting in the spring. It’s a tough wait, as Gio sees scraps of humanity appear before him: ghosts, almost, fighting for their lives. An escapee from a Nazi concentration camp, a grandmother waiting for her grandson to return from the front, an old farmer who is the go-between for the towns in the valley – with these few bonds that emerge from the abyss, Gio faces the tragedy of war with a sole aim: survive the winter, until the melting snows allow the fighting to resume, and perhaps a chance at a better life. Yet at what cost?