In the summer of 1956, Mr Yaban, an engineer with the National Institute of Rural Development and Colonization, and local landowner, sees how his properties are affected by a big settlement project aimed at establishing new communities in uninhabited areas of the barren plains of The Bardenas.
He then finds out that one of the settlements being constructed is to house convicts: the idea is that not only will the prisoners earn a reduction in their sentences but will also become the region’s settlers.
The establishment of such a ‘utopian’ colony, an allegory of the nature of human aspirations, will bring together very different individuals in this Navarra wilderness.