In the spring of 1945, with the end of the Second World War in sight, a German officer orders the reprisal shooting of eight woman in a small alpine village near Lake Como. Nearly fifty years later, in a suburb of Sydney, the daughter of one of the victims discovers her mother's executioner quietly living under an assumed name a few streets away. Aware of the impotence of the law, Colombina is determined to avenge the past. She makes up her mind to confront the old man and make him pay for his crime.