A photographer and his model are on a photo shoot in a forest when they get the feeling they are being watched. The feeling becomes so strong that they decide to cut their session short and leave. Later, when they develop the photos they took, they discover what looks like alien creatures in the background.

Michele is a young filmmaker frustrated by the lack of understanding his work receives and at odds with the film industry, especially a colleague making a musical on the '68 student protests. As he struggles to complete his own film about Freud's mother, Michele's insecurity and creative block manifest in a series of unsettling nightmares. Nanni Moretti's self-inquiry into cinema, political ennui, and men's relationships with their mothers.