 A time and place described through the life of Onofre Bouvila (Olivier Martinez), this film is based on a famous novel exposing the 20 or so year time frame which transformed Barcelona, starting in the late 1880s. Onofre is a youngster down on his luck, abandoned by his fortune seeking father to a life of poverty and misery, alone with his mother. Once an adult, he also decides to seek fortune, and travels to Barcelona on the eve of the Universal Exposition of 1888, which so transformed the city. He immediately falls in love with Delfina (Emma Suarez), daughter of the owner of the hotel he moves into. Onofre searches for a job in this teeming city full of violence, criminals, sickness and poverty. He finds nothing. Unable to pay the hotel, he accepts a suggestion from Delfina: to produce and distribute panflets, during the Exposition, in support of the anarchists - a group she actively promotes, in the defense of the workers. Their relationship quickly turns into passion. But police repression dissuades him from political activity, and he returns to his original ambition of seeking fortune, at odds with Delfina s values. This transition will not only change his socio-economic standing, but will represent a political break which may turn Delfina away from him.