Grace, her father and his gang have left Dogville behind and are driving south across America in search of greener pastures when they happen upon Manderlay, an old plantation where Grace is appalled to find that the dark days of slavery are far from over. With the help of her father’s firepower, Grace liberates the downtrodden people but she soon learns that the path to freedom is a rocky one and uphill all the way…

Manderlay is the second part of Lars von Trier’s trilogy USA – Land of Opportunities. After the succes of Dogville, Von Trier again choses to tell the story in a confined geographical area. This plantation is ‘staged’, and that’s why we can only concentrate on the main themes of emancipation from slavery and the problems accompanying the introduction of a democracy.