An avid collector of Greek objects in Asia Minor, Dimitris, prepares an exhibition on multicultural life in Smyrna before World War I. In a trip to Izmir his girlfriend Rita, he finds in a small antique shop a Greek wedding dress that is stained with blood and an old photograph that send him on a journey to bridge the past with the present.

Kinetta, a Greek desolate resort town, inhabited during the off-season by migrant workers. Lanthimos studies the cryptic activities of an inscrutable trio (a policeman, a photographer and a hotel maid) who barely speak and who pass the time by staging re-enactments of murders.
The policeman with a passion for automobiles, tape recorders and Russian women, investigates a series of recent murders in the area. He enlists the help of a photo-store clerk, a loner who is a part-time videographer, and a young hotel maid, who will be performing the role of the female victims. This oddball trio engages in a succession of murder re-enactments, directed by the cop with exhaustive attention to detail but questionable scientific purpose…
We know nothing more of these people. Not even their names. They will disappear in the first flood of summer vacationers...