The year is 1949, the early years of the Cold War. Physician, theologian, and humanitarian Albert Schweitzer has become one of the most admired men in the world, thanks to his philosophy of Reverence for Life which he lives out in his hospital in Lambarene, West Africa. When he is urged by Albert Einstein to speak out against the hydrogen bomb tests, U.S. national security agencies consider this a denunciation of Western politics. A smear campaign is launched to discredit the physician's reputation and to silence him. The investigative journalist Phil Figgis is sent to Lambarene to dig up dirt on Schweitzer and initiate a mutiny of some of the hospital doctors and local government representatives. Schweitzer is under pressure and the hospital might even be closed down. Will he resist, follow his conscience and still speak out against the nuclear weapons and the armament race? Starring Jeroen Krabbe and Golden Globe winner Barbara Hershey as Helene Schweitzer.