In 1950s Havana, a romance blooms between two young revolutionaries whose clandestine printing press publishes pamphlets meant to stir up rebellion against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. As their popularity grows, so, too, does their revolutionary zeal and their desire to mobilize other urban guerilla units.

After witnessing the arrest of her father for publishing "subversive" material against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, Valentina escapes taking a sack of gold coins with her in order to hand it over to rebel Francisco I. Madero, who is in San Antonio, Texas. That is how Valentina begins a long journey as a member of a traveling circus, where she finds love next to Victor, who, fascinated by the cinematographer, films everything that occurs before his eyes, in times of great political turbulence.