July 18, 1936. Salamanca, Castilla and León (centre to Spain). The Spanish army declares in the city the state of war, hoping to extend it to the rest of Spain and improve the unstable situation in the country after the proclamation of the Second Republic five years ago. An aging Miguel de Unamuno, not only writer and academic teacher but one of the most recognized intellectuals in Spain, disappointed with the Republic that publicly he helped to create, supports the new revolt in the hope to clean the country of the undesirable elements for desperation of his close friends teacher Salvador and priest Atilano, creating too problems in his house where Miguel lives with his daughters María and Felisa, his housemaid Aurelia and his grandson Miguelín. At the same time that Salamanca's mayor Casto Prieto is arrested without cause apparent and his wife Ana Carrasco asks help Miguel de Unamuno, the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet to decide the strategy to take the power, where the merciless.