In 1942 an Italian lady died quite suddenly in the back of a taxi, leaving the house of Pablo Neruda in Mexico City. Her death would be pronounced as heart failure, yet it would be shrouded in mystery all the same because Tina Modotti, was certainly not faint-hearted.

In her short life, Modotti underwent a radical metamorphosis: from rural Italy to silent Hollywood film star to photographer of communities in rural Mexico to communist agent, active in Russia, Spain and Mexico. Following her documentation of Mexican women, we see her experimenting with vintage Victorian dress, glamorous and strident among the Avant-Garde cultural set.