Ilenia works the assembly line of a shoe factory in the Marche region and dreams of the stage. When she's assigned a night shift right on the day of her acting class's dress rehearsal, she tries to talk her co-workers into swapping with her, running into indifference, hurry, and the small cruelties of factory life. Among the conveyor belts and boxes of candy drifting past with the shoes, an unexpected encounter with an older worker, Massimino, gives her, for one moment, the lightness and courage to stay true to herself.