In the heart of the Italian Alps, a family of eight has found refuge in the forest, without electricity or running water. Anne, Gerd and their six children are German; the parents had once fled their Bavarian town, their intellectual professions, and the pollution as the Chernobyl cloud passed overhead.
On the other side of the mountains, in south-eastern France, the ITER experiment continues its solar race. This cutting-edge international laboratory, unique in the resources it is given, is seeking to reproduce the Sun's energy on Earth, through atomic fusion.