三轮元（小泽征悦 饰）年幼时遇到过一个非常善良的老师，因此毕生的志愿就是成为一名和他一样的老师。师范毕业之后，三轮元被派往偏僻的乡村小学就职，那里的孩子们自幼出生在贫困的家庭之中，问题多多，难缠的家长和冥顽不灵的学校领导让三轮元四面楚歌，焦头烂额。 尽管情势十分的不乐观，但三轮元仍旧没有放弃希望，他发起了“萤火虫饲养计划”，希望能够通过这一举动加深师生之间的羁绊。琪琪（菅谷梨沙子 饰）从小生活在破碎的家庭之中，性格十分的孤僻冷漠，但是她却相信，只要能够放飞萤火虫，就能够重新获得失去的母爱。
The action of the film takes place in 1943. The title character is a cosmopolitan and incapable of deeper feelings seducer. In Poland, he lost his entire family. Alone - being in the heart of Nazi Germany - he hides his Jewish origins and often eludes death. He works as a waiter in the restaurant of an exclusive hotel and carelessly enjoys all the charms of life surrounded by luxury, beautiful women and friends from all over Europe. However, when the war begins to take a bloody toll on those closest to him, the intricately built world that surrounds him crumbles like a house of cards.
Beto is a lonely man who works as Ranger of the isolated Peninsula Valdes' National Park (Chubut, Argentina). Lover of the nature and animals, the peace of his days watching orcas, seals and sea lions in the sea ends after the arrival of Lola, a Spanish mother who travels there from Madrid with his autistic 11 years old son Tristán looking for Beto after both watch him in a documentary about whales. Desperate, Lola asks help Beto in order to make a therapy for Tristán, hoping that his isolation caused by the autism can be overcome. Reluctant at the beginning, Beto agrees to help Tristán, sailing by the cost in a boat to meet orcas (defying the rules that prevent touching them and swimming them), the only one that causes emotional responses in Tristán. As days go by, Tristán starts slowly to express emotions, in the same way that Beto's boss tries to fire him in the belief that orcas are a dangerous killers whales, Lola realizes about a familiar trouble in Spain and that they Lola and ...
