Eighteen-year-old Blažena is attempting to escape the drudgery of her job in a pharmacy into a world of imagination and fancy when a chance encounter with a handsome young film director leads to an opportunity she had never dreamed of: acting in motion pictures. This happy accident sees her move to Prague, Czechoslovakia's beautiful capital city, and the chance to act out her fantasies in film roles.

Her star is in the ascendant as she becomes a leading actress, and life and love merge when she meets handsome Josef. His disappearance while visiting Nazi Germany devastates Blažena, and she only manages to keep her sanity by throwing everything into her work.

Hitler's warlike aspirations threaten the future of the Czech film industry when the famous Barrandov Film Studios are appropriated by Joseph Goebbels, the German Minister for Propaganda, and Blažena is conflicted when persuaded to make propaganda films for Goebbels. The German defeat is followed by communism, and Blažena's refusal to join the Party sees her blacklisted from film-making.

What will her life become? When communism falls, she is resigned to fade into obscurity. But will she, and has she really been forgotten by those who once adored her on the silver screen?.