On a cold and dreary Christmas Eve, in a gloomy fogbound seaport, docks a tired old freighter. Deep in its hold, a stowaway is hiding. The crew members leave the ship and go their separate ways. After nightfall, the stowaway tries to make it to dry land by sliding down a rope, but he is paralysed with fear. Using sand animation on underlit glass plates, Stowaway is adapted from a story by the Portuguese writer José Rodrigues Miguéis. Profoundly melancholy in its expressive and richly textured imagery, the film is about one man's agonizing struggle for freedom.