During a trip to the USA Carla falls in love with Charles, an ex-punk rocker now working as a security guard. She returns to Torino, Italy, and breaks the bad news to Francesco, her fiancee; they have a fight, she leaves him and apparently disappears.

The movie tells the little stories of a group of families who live in the same building in Rome as seen from the eyes of Sandrino, a little kid who is awaiting for a total eclipse of the sun, that really happened during summer of '61, and it was was fully visible from Italy. He sees his family life, a young girl who is about to marry a man she doesn't love, an old man who has just died and whose relatives fight for his inheritance, a blind trumpet player who hopes to recover, his little friends...