Rogelio was forced into exile by the Chilean military Junta after being arrested and put into the Antofagasta prison camp. For five years, he has lived as a Chilean exile in the GDR, where he works as a lighting technician at a small local theater. Rogelio is lonely and isolated. He fantasizes about the opera singer Cornelia, and in his letters to his mother, he spins his dream into reality. He writes to her about his happy relationship and plans of marriage as if they were real. On the same day that Rogelio decides he cannot keep up the lie, he receives a letter from back home that turns his life upside down. The film is based on the 1983 novel by Chilean writer Omar Saavedra Santis (1944-2021), who spent many years in East German exile before he returned to Chile in 2009.