Puppeteer and author Gigio Brunello tells a semi-autobiographical story. While building a watermill in his garden, he found help at a mechanical workshop located in the basement of a church in a working-class neighbourhood of Venice-Mestre. This episode gave Gigio Brunello the opportunity to write this text inspired by lives from the last century, in particular that of his father, a former mechanic and handyman. The title plays on a double meaning: in Italian, vite senza fine refers both to a “worm screw” (the name of the mechanism used to drive the mill wheel) and to “endless lives”, which gives the show its meaning. Lives that, like the perpetual motion of the wheel, live on thanks to the fresco painted by the text. Vite senza fine is the first episode of the ‘trilogy on the city of Mestre’, a triptych written by Brunello about his hometown.

Armando, the narrator's alter ego, is unable to complete his project to build a watermill to irrigate his vegetable garden. His search for a solution leads him to meet the residents of his neighbourhood and recount their stories, which paint a picture of lives not yet alienated, neighbourhood celebrations and funerals, love and betrayal, everyday existence and dreams. In particular, on this day, the funeral of Stevanato is being celebrated, a former worker who, along with other retirees, had created a community workshop in the church basement to serve the neighbourhood, where anything and everything could be repaired. The engineering project designed to make the statue of St Joseph in the church cry will provide Armando with the solution to make his mill work: he was missing a helical gear mechanism, the famous “vite senza fine” (endless screw).