The fall of communism has left Albania a swarming chaos of starvation and corruption--ripe for the picking by foreign swindlers. Enrico, an Italian con man, wants to set up a dummy factory with his partner, but must head the company with an Albanian. They pick Spiro, a demented 80-year-old just released from 50 years of hard labor, to be the figurehead president. But when Spiro runs away into the countryside, Enrico sets after him and is gradually stripped of the chic trappings he's taken for granted back home. Finally, he's reduced to joining the thousands of Albanian refugees trying to escape to a better life in Italy.