Telemachus, an actor with a glorious past and an uncertain future, leaves Athens at the age of fifty to escape the banks. With the help of Babis "Fou," he finds refuge in an abandoned castle in the heart of Messinia. The only inhabitants are two brothers who don't speak to each other and a niece who got fed up with them and left, Demokratia. Telemachus meets her by chance and is enchanted. A little of the doctor's syrup for his lungs, which have become a mine, a little tsipouro, a little of Babis' "forbidden substances"... the gods intervene and Democracy returns to her place! Dream, reality, or both? You be the judge, and whoever finds out wins a Kalamon pasteli.

"Arpa-colla" in Greek literally means "Grab and stick", a phrase used to show something that has been done quickly and therefore isn't good enough. This is what the 2 main heroes of the film are doing. The one is a director(Giorgos) and the other an author(Kostas) with communistic ideas, who has won a prize at a festival. They both want to make a movie for the cinema. But every idea they have never comes true, because every time they meet someone to whom they tell their idea, they change their mind, and they want to make a totally different movie, ideas varying from political cinema to Greek historical dramas and modern films with motorcycle gangs. Not a bad attempt for the Greek cinema of the early 80's, which starts to wake up from the hibernation of the 70's.

The story of a group of Rembetes, singers and musicians of the Greek equivalent to the blues, in the early decades of the 20th century, seen through the eyes of a young female singer.