Alisa Von Trotta, a German of Baltic descent, returns to her father's estate in Latvia in 1919 with the intention of selling it and starting a new life. On arrival, she meets the local workers, who are rude and hostile towards her. Gradually, Alice realises that she has fallen into a trap carefully laid by the satanic lawyer Emil Kaiserling, the decadent underground organisation VIVA LA MORT and its necrophiliac leader Ziba Folstaf. All of them hatch a plan to manipulate Alice, well educated in France but also seriously physically injured. Kaiserling and VIVA LA MORT know that what she wants most is to awaken her untapped creative talent. They seek to exploit her potential for their own demonic purposes regarding the future of Latvia. Freeing herself from the clutches of these "helpers", Alisa meets Latvian film enthusiasts who are making a silent film about the old inhabitants of Latvia. Befriending them, she begins to make her own experimental film. Gradually, it becomes a tool for self-discovery and a weapon against her enemies, as well as a means to heal her own wounds by turning them into a masterpiece of silent cinema.