From Pushcart Prize and Golden Palm winner Miha Mazzini comes the charming and unlikely story of an imitation Mariachi band in 1950s Communist Yugoslavia.

When the traveling cinema comes to a Yugoslavian village in 1950, the young men and women are introduced to Mexican melodramas depicting the Mexican revolution, and they become entranced by not only the heroes of these films, but also by the music. In the midst of their own political nightmare, they escape reality through the exploits of the cinematic revolutionaries, and in the morning the younger men of the village seem to know the songs by heart and form their own Mariachi band.

Love, cinema, music, military bravado, intrigue and the promise of revolution play out in a tiny mountain village, but the pseudo-Mexican farce is about to end, because the Supreme Commander General is on his way to see for himself just what is going on...

Ella learns that Alicia was once on the cusp of making it big in the music business. Convincing Alicia to resurrect the now defunct band, and offering to finance the entire effort, the band records an album called Phoenix, and embarks upon a tour of California.

On tour with Alicia and the band, Ella becomes hooked on cocaine again and suffers a cardiac arrest. She is warned by her doctor to stay away from the drug as her next hit could kill her. But temptation (and cocaine) is everywhere. Meanwhile, Alicia is rising to stardom as a result of Ella's encouragement and financial backing. Ella's faith in Alicia is unconditional, but is her faith in herself great enough to overcome her addiction and choose life over death? It all comes down to The Faith...

Manying, distressed and frightened and unsure of the fate of her soldier husband, must flee Nanjing with her baby. With the help of her beloved childhood sweetheart, she finds a place on the last train leaving the city and endures a horrifying journey to Hong Kong where she is taken in by her brother and sister-in law. Grief-stricken and destitute, she struggles to make sense of the world in which she now finds herself. As she recalls the cruel fate of her uncle at a provincial court half a century earlier and all that has been lost, she makes a discovery: the past shapes the present. Fate, however, has yet more in store for her.

Love, war, sacrifice, corruption and revenge all play their part in this epic story that reaches its climax in twenty-first century Shanghai.