The documentary describes the life and problems of the families of mountain farmers in a continual narrative composite of the microcosms of Schams, a Romansh Swiss area, and a small Andean village above Curahausi.
Besides the contrasts between these two very different cultures and worlds, there is a kind of direct line joining these mountain areas. Their everyday life is marked by the rhythm of the changing seasons and their needs are, to a certain extent, the same.
Of course, the technologies and social and economic organisation of the inhabitants of Schams are much more advanced than those of the inhabitants of the Andean village, but the mountain environment poses the same problems for both of them and, in the broadest sense, the same view of the world, as if to show that mountains worldwide unite people and affect their lives in a similar way.