Military strategists unwittingly plant the seeds of the apocalypse when they humor a scientific genius unbalanced by his daughter's death so that he'll complete a top-secret project.
In a tale of an old Welsh funerary custom, a devastating famine forces a young boy to play the part of a sin-eater at a dead man's wake. His duties: to cleanse the departed of sin by feasting in the presence of his corpse.
Desperate to stay alive for the sake of his nine-year-old grandson, an elderly, near-penniless Jew on the brink of death pins his hopes for salvation on the coming of the Messiah.