In 1938, while Spain is in the grip of civil war, a film team from territory held by Franco's rebels are invited to the co-production in Berlin of a musical set in 19th-century Andalusia, to be shot in separate Spanish and German versions. At first happy to be working away from their war-torn country, the group find life under Nazism increasingly unpleasant and dangerous.
Macarena, their attractive star, soon catches the eye of Goebbels, the Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, who is determined to bed her. Though she finds him repulsive, and prefers the company of Blas, the married director of the Spanish version, it is made clear to her that for the sake of the project and of Hispano-German relations she must comply.
When she points out that the extras in the film look ridiculously inauthentic, being tall and fair-haired, they are replaced by short dark Jewish and Romani prisoners from a concentration camp, under armed SS guards. An extra with whom she sympathises, a handsome Russian called Leo, escapes the guards and she smuggles him into the villa where Goebbels has installed her. When Goebbels calls round, Leo knocks him out cold.
Blas realises that this is the end of the road for the project and rushes to see Goebbels' wife, who is well aware of her husband's activities. She writes him a pass enabling Leo, Macarena and her dresser to board a plane that night. The fate of the rest of the group, who are all under arrest, is unclear.
During the Civil War, filmmakers from the Nationalist side found work in Germany and Italy. For example, in 1938 at the UFA studios in Babelsberg, the Spanish director Florián Rey filmed Carmen, la de Triana in Spanish and a German version called Andalusische Nächte, both starring the Argentine singer and actress Imperio Argentina with whom, according to legend, Hitler fell in love. She is reported to have sued the producers and director for using her life story without permission.
