A writer preparing the screenplay for a film about machismo in modern Cuba conducts his research amongst the waterside workers in Havana. He expects to find there a contradiction between masculine arrogance and good revolutionary values.

Women also work on the Havana docks, and he becomes emotionally involved with one of them, initially he intended to use her as the model for a character whom his actress wife would portray. Now a crisis looms in his married life. Also there is a dispute with the director about their changing concepts of the subject after preliminary video footage has been shot and assembled "Reality" is more complex than they anticipated.He realizes there is an element of machismo within himself which he must overcome, even at the risk of not completing the film proiect.

Born in Havana in 1928. Alca studied at El Central Spenmentale de Cinematografia in Rome, and returned to Cuba. His film-making career began in 1955, his works as a director include "History of the Revolution" (1960), "Death of a Bureaucrat" (1966), "Memories of Underdevelopment”.