A humble clerk courts a woman who awaits her lover's return night after night.

A love triangle, the past invades the present. Mario, a shy man new in Livorno, chats up a crying woman on a bridge. She's Natalia, waiting for a lover gone for a year who promised to return. For three nights, Mario accompanies Natalia, assists her, distracts her, dances with her. He falls in love with her. Can he pull Natalia into his arms, away from the past and from love for a man who will probably never return?—<[email protected]>

On a cold night, a lonely ordinary man, Mario, is wandering along the empty streets of Livorno after spending the day with his employer's family. While crossing a bridge, he sees a beautiful woman crying and starts a conversation with her. The reluctant Natalia finally allows her companion to walk her home and they plan to meet at the same place the next night at 10PM. The quixotic Natalia tells Mario she lives with her grandmother. When a stranger rents a room from her grandmother, Natalia immediately falls in love with him, but he asks for one year apart to raise enough money to get married, promising to meet her on the bridge where Mario met her the previous night. She gives Mario a letter to deliver to the stranger, which Mario throws into the canal. The next night, Natalia meets Mario by chance and they spend the snowy night together, dancing, chatting, and drinking, and Mario falls in love with her.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil