Hope lives with her husband on the mountain, and all summer makes charcoal in a kiln in the heart of the forest. When it reaches the village the recently released from prison Marco, under the pretext of the foot treatment, hanging out every day, and promises to take her back home, Kavala, which has much nostalgia.

In 1955 a couple of prominent Greek Istanbulites adopt an orphan Greek girl, twelve-year-old Polyxeni, who is separated from her younger brother. She embarks on a new life and a future that looks bright, but she will have to defend what’s rightfully hers.

Kinetta, a Greek desolate resort town, inhabited during the off-season by migrant workers. Lanthimos studies the cryptic activities of an inscrutable trio (a policeman, a photographer and a hotel maid) who barely speak and who pass the time by staging re-enactments of murders.
The policeman with a passion for automobiles, tape recorders and Russian women, investigates a series of recent murders in the area. He enlists the help of a photo-store clerk, a loner who is a part-time videographer, and a young hotel maid, who will be performing the role of the female victims. This oddball trio engages in a succession of murder re-enactments, directed by the cop with exhaustive attention to detail but questionable scientific purpose…
We know nothing more of these people. Not even their names. They will disappear in the first flood of summer vacationers...