The film traces the last hours of the life of poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini. The poet is killed at night in 1975 on the beach at Ostia, near Rome. A boy is arrested: Pino Pelosi, and charged with murder. The police and judges believe that Pelosi is the only murderer of Pasolini, but his injuries on the body of the poet are too severe and profound. Then are called to bear witness to the death of the poet his sister and his mother, destroyed by grief. As the process unfolds, the film examines the personality of Pasolini, and his works and, above all explains what people think of him in Italy. Pasolini according to some Italians was a provocative man: he deserved what he suffered, having been a Communist and a homosexual. Instead, his friends and intellectuals remember him as a very good and sensible man, who sought only to fight against neo-fascism and the cruel and bigoted mentality of middle-class society.