During a five-year period, Gianfranco Rosi documents the world of down-on-their-luck individuals who live in a Californian desert, about 200 miles southeast of Los Angeles and twenty feet below sea level. They have turned their backs on society, and want to be left alone.

Often it takes an outsider to find the essence of a landscape or milieu. Like Antonioni before him, Gianfranco Rosi follows exiles from the American Dream into the California desert. This raw, intimate portrait of people living at the extreme margins of society is portrayed with remarkable empathy.