After the Italian army is defeated in North Africa, a cavalry officer, Amedeo Guillet, takes charge of the local resistance movement in Eritrea against the English army. He’s assisted by Kadija, the lovely daughter of a local tribal chieftain. Over fifty years later, an Italian film crew comes to Eritrea to make a film about this marvelous tale of love and heroism. The casting call to find the star of the film becomes the occasion to become acquainted with the situation, and the hopes, of a country cut off from the rest of the world for twenty years by its military dictatorship, as seen through the eyes of the young would-be actors and their families.