16 year old Australian girl Belinda (Deanne Jeffs) wants to become a ballerina. To makes ends meet, she takes a job as an exotic dancer in a Sydney cabaret. Eventually, she is able to reach her goal, but not before experiencing humanity at best and worst of times.

Partly funded as a Bicentennial commission through the University of Queensland Art Museum and the ABC, Hughes’ speculative, essayistic documentary is an examination of the future of Australia in light of the processes of post-industrialisation, Walter Benjamin’s ruinous “angel of history” and Marx’s quixotic vision of modernity.