Alexandros, a famous writer of his time, faces his melancholy after the death of his wife and the diagnosis of his own terminal illness. Living a life of unfinished works, he is lost in the bright memories of the past and reconnects with life when he stumbles upon a refugee boy and helps him.
This unlikely friendship leads the film to reflect on how real or imaginary the boundaries between nations, between past and present, between life and death are in real life. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and was the closing film in Theo Angelopoulos' trilogy on borders.
