A theatrical group prepare Voltaire’s play “Alzire”. From this the ideas of Voltaire are examined as they relate to the present day political situation.

An exhausted militant wants to take a break from the incessant frenzy surrounding him. His country’s dictatorship is on its last legs and chaos reigns. His wife Sylvie leaves their country for France. She writes about the new democracy struggling to be born back home. His daughter Joyce must hide out in the deserted childhood home in the solitude and infinity of the Black Beach. Several adversaries – the militia of a hazy regime in his native land and the Paris police – wage a strange game of chess in which he is the pawn. Threats abound and he’s haunted by his past, his fears, dead friends. He has three allies: his wife, his daughter, and an old girlfriend from his fighting days.

A young Swiss couple, Vincent and Françoise, plan to leave Geneva and settle in Africa: a friend of theirs living in Algeria promises to give them a job there.

Marianne, a young Canadian nurse living as an expatriate in Switzerland, is traumatized by a violent incident and becomes lost in the Alps. In time, a Swiss engineer working in the mountains discovers her; he gives her a place to stay and slowly gains her trust as she regains her health. However, he soon discovers she's wanted by the law, and circumstances become difficult for him as he tries to hide her from the authorities.

Sebastien Grenier, a former French spy, is working as a financial analyst in Zurich. However, his peaceful existence starts to disintegrate when he is recruited by a top French intelligence operative to discover how one of their own secret agents was found out and executed in broad daylight.

A TV reporter and his assisstant go to a small Swiss village to do a programme with a reclusive scientist, an expert on world food shortages. During this time, an Italian immigrant worker is killed in a road crash and the reporter becomes involved in uncovering the truth about his death.