Ermanno Olmi has returned to documentary filmmaking and makes a journey through valleys, living rocks and the culture of the Valtellina hillsides.
Angela Russo, a sixteen-year-old girl, is found dead in a river, having been fatally violated with a large blunt instrument. Inspector Di Salvo is assigned to the case and focuses his investigations on St. Theresa's, the exclusive school where Angela boarded. Three of the murdered girl's classmates, Franca, Paola and Virginia (who call themselves "The Inseparables"), receive threatening poems from an individual using the name "Nemesis." Bizarre "accidents" start to befall the girls: Franca is injured when someone causes her horse to bolt and Virginia nearly breaks her neck on marbles left at the top of a staircase. But Di Salvo is determined to find the killer, even if it means using unorthodox methods. He is aided by Angela Russo's little sister Emily, whose helpful clues lead to a boutique owned by a dubious character and a vice ring where "rich influential men pay well for teenage favours..."
This Italian black-and-white film, based on a true story, was originally made for television. It concerns the life and sad end of Evariste Gallois (Mario Barriba), a brilliant student mathematician whose republican politics and hot-bloodedness resulted in his death; it is unclear whether he died by political assassination or as a result of a duel.