Mariela lives with her family in a remote fishing village in Cuba. Her first husband drowned while trying to flee to the USA; her second, much older husband is a fisherman with heart and soul. They love each other and care for their four children with devotion, despite all the poverty and hardship that life on the fringes of actually existing socialism entails.

More and more neighbors and friends dare to flee across the open sea, and not all of them arrive. The old fisherman doesn't understand them, he is attached to the ideals of the revolution, to his work. But Mariela is young, she too dreams of freedom and prosperity. The more tourists come to the poor country, the higher the prices rise, the harder it becomes for the family to survive. In slow, sensitive images, this award-winning documentary shows the turmoil of a hopeless generation torn between family, home and the dream of a better life.