March 1941: a cargo ship leaves Marseille for Martinique with, on board, several artists and intellectuals escaping from Vichy France, including André Breton, Claude Lévi-Strauss and the Cuban artist Wifredo Lam.

The wonderful visual artist William Kentridge launches the spectator on to one of his artistic, political and spiritual adventures of which he alone holds the secret: a chamber opera inspired by the avant-gardes of the time, mixing the surreal and irrational (masks, collages, projections) and engaging dancers, performers, chorus members and instrumentalists in a vast web of musical styles, especially African and Caribbean.