1925. José Raúl Capablanca, a famous Cuban chess player and employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, arrives in Moscow for an international chess tournament. The trip, taking place under Machado's dictatorship, casts doubt on his future in this position. The film shows Capablanca's dramatic matches with Lasker, Tartakower, and Bogolubov, his tragic love for Bolshoi Theatre ballerina Sasha Mozhaeva, and a simultaneous game in which he lost to the very young Mikhail Botvinnik.

In 1920s Havana, Rachel is a showgirl who longs to become a headliner at the incredibly popular Alhambra theater. On her way to attain that, she loses the love of her life and falls into the clutches of a passion that nearly destroys her career.

Based on the novel Francisco by Anselmo Suárez y Romero, "The Other Francisco" is a socio-economic analysis of slavery and class struggle through the retelling of the original novel. The film contrasts the romantic conceptions of plantation life found in Suárez Romero's novel with a realistic expose of the actual historical conditions of slavery throughout the Americas. It offers a critical analysis of the novel, showing how the author's social background led to his use of particular dramatic structures to convey his liberal, humanitarian viewpoint.