La Descente à la plage is the story of a day in the life of Dario, a notorious misanthropist, who spends some time on his own every year in the familiar calm of a hotel on the island of Panarea. That day, he is forced to leave his room because there’s no water to be had in it.

Outside, Virgilio, a kid who seems to know things in advance, becomes his companion in misery. Dario leaves no stone unturned in his quest to find water, but each failure forces him inexorably closer to his fate. Which, as Roberto – the receptionist at a nearby hotel – says, is to go down to the beach.

Dario hates the beach with all his might. So he wanders from one place to the next in a desperate attempt to avoid his final destination, meeting all sorts of people along the way. The total and absurd lack of water on the entire island, the sun beating hotter and hotter, the tanker called Caronte… Dario only realizes it belatedly, but he’s in hell. His own private one. Of his own making. Stuck in the narrow streets of Panarea, he is forced to confront what got him there. Because, consumed by his guilty feelings, Dario comes every year to honor his father, who disappeared on that accursed beach and who he didn’t try to save. The infernal day he’s going through will force him to acknowledge his own wrongdoing, to accept it, and to make a greater effort to free himself of it.