In a dictatorship that bans images, a schoolboy discovers a store of old film stock and sets up a screening of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times.

Rush Island, 2037: twenty years ago, images were banned by the Bradbury Law. According to the official propaganda, photographs are bad, films make you go crazy, and TV is the opiate of the people. The government's Eye Brigade is in charge of tracking down terrorists who oppose this dictatorship. They burn any images they find, as well as the pupils of anyone concealing them, because "a good citizen is a blind citizen." Fifteen-year-old Kao is fascinated by images. After school, he hangs around the streets in Badwords and secretly distributes them. There are rumors that a few films survived and are buried somewhere on the island. Kao will risk anything to save them from the flames.