Tricked into going to Stalinist Russia to look for her daughter, actress Maria Leiko discovers that she died in childbirth. Holding her motherless baby in her arms, Maria receives a job offer at a Soviet theatre and decides to stay for a season. But the secrets of the regime and the terrible repression gradually creep into the idealised world of the actress. She is forced to choose between fame and love for her granddaughter, between her convictions and a totalitarian regime steeped in lies.