Liv Ullmann plays real-life Jewish dissident and astronomer Ida Nudel in this historical biography. Ida is denied papers to emigrate after her lover Yuli (Daniel Olbrychski) is release from a labor camp. When Yuli and Ida's sister Elena (Aurore Clement) receive their papers, Ida rides with them on a train bound for Vienna and jumps off before she crosses the border. Arrested for protesting in Moscow in 1980, Ida is sent to an all-male prison where she is in constant danger of assault. After being transferred to a woman's camp, Ida returns to Moscow to find that her apartment is occupied, Yuli has married, and she is banished from the city she loves. Ida wanders from village to village until she recalls her story to an American reporter.