In the heart of the Soviet Union, two visionary animators, Yuri Norstein and Francesca Yarbusova, embark on a decades-long, obsessive quest to create a masterpiece. Their project, an adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's The Overcoat, becomes a consuming labor of love that tests their marriage, their sanity, and their artistic integrity. As they navigate the restrictive and often hostile environment of the state-controlled film industry, they find themselves locked in a battle against censorship and the crushing weight of their own perfectionism, ultimately questioning the true cost of artistic creation.