The Black Ball opens in 1937, where a rural village loyal to Nationalist rebels is holding a celebration to welcome their Italian allies. Only, when the planes fly overhead, they strafe the villagers with bullets and send bombs whining down into buildings. One young man, Sebastián (the singer Guitarricadelafuente, making a promising acting debut), scrambles to safety, only to be conscripted into the fascist army. Five years earlier, with revolution approaching, another young man, Carlos (Milo Quifes), drowns his sorrows after being black-balled from his father’s social club due to unseemly rumours about his sexual proclivities. And in 2017, a gay writer and historian, Alberto (Carlos González), learns that a grandfather he didn’t know he had has left him something in his will — a document that will crucially link his story to the past. How these three plots intersect is the mystery of the film.