In the late 1930s, in Ferrara, a group of young friends get together for afternoons of tennis and happy times. Some of them are Italian Jews and a rising tide of Fascism has imposed increasingly anti-Semitic restrictions in their lives. Barred from regular tennis clubs, they go to play at the grand, walled estate owned by the Finzi-Continis, a wealthy, intellectual and sophisticated Jewish family. The two young Finzi-Continis, Alberto and his sister Micòl, have organized a tennis tournament. Oblivious to the threats around them, life still seems to be sunny at the large Finzi-Contini estate, keeping the rest of the world at bay.