The real story of the partisan Silvio Corbari (Giuliano Gemma). Silvio forms a band of partisans in Northern Italy, completely independent from the Italian organized resistance (CLN). Ines (Tina Aumont), leaves her husband to join the band and becomes Silvio’s lover. Silvio seems to suceed in creating a free-zone, his personal republic, independent from Nazi-occupied Italy, in a little village called Tregnano.

This film is very much a docudrama which portrays the difficulties of Italian life circa 1963 due to the absence of a divorce law. Five scenarios with different actors portray realistic situations where divorce is clearly warranted but, because marriage was strictly in the purview of the Catholic Church at that time, which strictly forbade divorce, these people are shown to suffer the consequences in their daily lives. Italy got its first civilian divorce law in 1970.