During the WWII Italians and English occupy alternatively a village between the Albanian and Grecian borders. It happens so often that, not only they use the same Hotel (the Iris) as headquarters, but also they find the time to build up a kind of friendship relation. In fact the two colonels, the Italian Col. Di Maggio and the English Henderson save each other their life. But one day German army orders to Di Maggio a massive bombing in order to destroy completely the village, killing all its occupants and inhabitants, including the girls for which the Italians fallen in love. Di Maggio refuses and is sentenced to death. It is just the night before the famous September the 8th 1943.