The film opens at a packed theatre for the night of a premiere. At the play’s conclusion, the performers are rewarded with rapturous applause from the audience. But when the lights go out; the actors leave the stage and return to their cells – Caesar, Brutus and the others. They are all inmates of Rebibbia, a maximum-security jail on the outskirts of Rome, and many are serving life sentences for murder or mafia-linked crimes.