The story begins in the present-day, in candlelight, in the happy, Spanish home where celebrations are underway for the 23rd birthday of Lucia, an angelic young woman who will discover that same night that her father, Germán, is hiding a terrible secret. The remainder of the film then repeatedly jumps back and forth between the 21st century and the 1970s, and between Madrid and Buenos Aires, reconstructing those abominable acts which not only caused Germán to go into exile in Spain but which also made him afraid to face up to his own former life.