Piedmont, the end of XVIII Century. The small Cino, nine years old, son of poor mountaineers of Cuneo is entrusted to a shady French carter to be conducted in France and "rented" to work in the summer pastures of the Mercantour region.
During the trip he becomes friend with Catlin, a girl of his age who along the path becomes ill with pneumonia and was abandoned by the carter.
Cino, when in France is the victim of his master's abuses and soon escapes, that leads him to find again unexpectedly Catlin. The two children decide to cross the Alps on foot back down and go home in Piedmont.
The route to Italy soon proves full of surprises and dangers, the mountains are populated by mysterious and hostile forces , which seems to have a magical influence on the small Catlin who continues the journey, but not with Cino, who will return to home alone.
The film tells, like a fairy tale, the adventures and misadventures of two young runaways, their encounters, dreams, hopes and fears, on a journey of education but also of freedom and fantasy.
(Plot by Website Editor)