Contemporary Historians, a group of American writers and intellectuals which included Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Archibald MacLeish and Lillian Hellman, sponsored this milestone documentary to inspire support and publicity for the Spanish Republican cause. The setting is the small Spanish village of Fuenteduena, near Madrid, and the road between Madrid and Valencia, where the villagers develop plans to irrigate the land recently confiscated from the feudal landowners, while military forces take part in the defense of Madrid.