A small island off the coast of Sicily, near Africa.
Filippo, his mother and grandfather can no longer make a living from fishing, an activity that has been carried out down through the generations.
Summer is coming and they decide to rent out their house to tourists, whose numbers increase each year. One day Filippo and his grandfather save a group of African boat people from their capsized boat and give them shelter.
The fishermen and their families, young and old, are at odds with each other about the attitude they should adopt: should they denounce the boat people for tourism's sake or should they respect the moral values of solidarity inherited from their work on the sea?