The Second World War was over, but in Hollywood, another conflict was just brewing. Under the pretext of protecting the USA from infiltration by the Soviet Union, in 1947, the American Government formed the House of UnAmerican Activities. The group drew up a list of 300 people working in the film industry they deemed to be communists and decreed that Hollywood studios could no longer employ anyone on that list. Any films crediting those blacklisted names would not be distributed in the States. All this, despite there being no evidence that communist propaganda was being used in films at that time. In the case of the Hollywood Ten, they refused to co-operate with the committee, citing freedom of conscience, and were sentenced to a year in jail. Out of Hollywood charts the devastating impact on the blacklisted, who lost their careers, their place in society, friends - and in some instances, their lives. It is the story of one of Hollywood's bleakest moments, and of the capacity for artistic resistance to defy the attempts of the FBI and MI5 to break this resistance, forging new beginnings abroad: from Joseph Losey, the film-maker of The Servant and The Go-Between (winner of the Palme d'or ), to Hannah Weinstein, who produced Adventures of Robin Hood and Sam Wanamaker, who was responsible for rebuilding the Globe Theatre.

Out of Hollywood is a story of survival under exceptional physical and emotional pressure.