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Turin, 1940.
War against Anglo-americans has just began.
MASSIMO-20years old-has a passion for Jazz music and is an average piano player.
At the semi-clandestine Crimea Cafe his favourite jazz band, the Gio' Cervi quartet plays hidden from the great audience the Music banned from the fascist Regime.
Massimo, who's having always more fights with his dispotic father - a strong supporter of Mussolini's -goes there every week: he loves that Music and doesnt care of those restrictive Laws, like many others,in a typical italian way.
Among them,paradoxically, we also meet a Fascist hierarch, always warned by his son in uniform that someone could notice that.
Massimo wants to learn Jazz music in order to play and compose: so he meets one of the Musicians of the Giò Cervi's band, Alberto Molaien.
He agrees to teach Massimo the musical theory.Lessons begin, and Massimo reveals himself as a good student.We also notice soon that Alberto is a jew.
But one night the boy is picked up at home by Black Shirts: after,we see him in jail with Molaien and other 'rebels'. Giò Cervi, the strong band's leader,will later join the group.The musicians are wondering why they are there: the answer comes from the Jail Director, another Fascist fool supporter:Jazz represents for the Regime the Enemy's Culture, and it's to be wiped away as 'esothic vehicle' and menace to the Italic melody.
Time elapses: now we are in the 1943.
The SS and a Wermacht wing take control of the Jail, putting totally out the Director. Life there is very hard every day for Massimo and for his loved Musicians,companions in that cruel destiny.
They're treated like pigs, often beaten: Nazis are definitely not kidding and often someone is massacred,including Giò Cervi,who drives almost totally crazy in spite of his mental strenght.
But even if they die every day as men,they grow up as musicians: and they survive thanks to the Music that they talk about and write.
Moreover, Massimo develops a friendship with Francesco, a young jailor who knew him before and who provides him Jazz records and magazines.
During a transfer trip with Francesco to an unknown destination,the boy- very concerned- confesses to his idol Cervi all his esteem for him: then he submits to his opinion the strange tune he's composing.
But the five prisoners - the two men,with Alberto and others - are placed in a row in front of a shooting platoon.
The hierarch we saw at the beginning comes in: he's responsible for carrying out an order...
(of course, we'll not reveal the ending)
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Synopsis 
