In the mid-1970s, the popular television actor David Carradine set out to direct his dream project: the story of Mata Hari, the famed Dutch courtesan and spy from the First World War. Mata Hari would be played by his daughter Calista, whom he envisioned turning into a star. Planning a fifteen year process to make the movie, David imagined watching Calista grow up on camera and age in real time as the subject of his film. Mata Hari also doubled as a way for David to create a relationship with Calista, whom he’d been estranged from for over a decade. In the end, however, the film was left unfinished.

This documentary tells the story of David and Calista’s effort to make their film, and through the filmmaking process, the development of a complex, fraught relationship between a father and a daughter struggling to know each other.