The convoluted and moving story of Russian writer Vassili Grossman (1905-64) and his novel Life and Fate (1980), a literary masterpiece, a monumental and epic account of life under Stalin's regime of terror, a defiant cry that the KGB tried to suffocate.
In 1941, a group of the Soviet Union's most prominent Jewish writers and artists, including Solomon Mikhoels, Peretz Markish, and Sergei Eisenstein, signed an appeal to Jews throughout the world, asking them to join the Soviet people in fighting against fascism.
An American circus performer finds herself the victim of racism after it is revealed that she's the mother of a mixed-race child. In the midst of the public scandal, she finds happiness, love, and refuge in the USSR.