Erik Nietzsche is an intelligent but in many ways inexperienced shy young man who is convinced that he wants to be a film director. In the late 1970s Erik is accepted by the Danish National Film School where he enters a world of angry unhelpful tutors, weird fellow students and unwritten rules. It is both an exhilarating and angst-provoking period and Erik feels increasingly like a foreigner in the film industry. He encounters trade union disputes, falls in love and experiences self-assured, empowered women who refuse to make a commitment.