In 1956 Roberto Rossellini is 50 years old and going through a deep sentimental and artistic crisis. His great successes, Rome Open City and Paisan, are a distant memory.
Trouble with critics, producers and his second wife, Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman, have him cornered.
His films starring Bergman, Stromboli, Europa 51, and Journey to Italy, are critical and box office failures. Their marital crisis is the favourite subject of tabloid journalists, who pursue them viciously.
Ingrid decides to return to Hollywood, no longer willing to tie her artistic career only to Roberto and anxious to resolve their financial problems.
At the height of this personal and professional crisis, Rossellini meets Indian Prime Minister Nehru who invites him to India to document the progress of his young independent nation. Excited by the idea, but also worried by the prospect, he prepares a will, packs 100 kilos of spaghetti, and on December 8th, 1956, embarks for Bombay.
India marks Rossellini’s artistic and sentimental rebirth. He discovers the depth of an ancient culture confronted with the challenges of modernity and is fascinated by it.