Glenn Gould tells the tale of a student's winter journey from Toronto to distant Winnipeg with images and music reflecting the majesty of the North. Based on Gould's radio documentary of the same name.

It all begins with a childhood memory: that day when the father of the future filmmaker Sebastiano d'Ayala Valva forces him to listen to certain music that initially terrifies him; a distant echo from the past that leads him to follow the trail of his mysterious ancestor, the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), who claimed that his music was directly inspired by the gods.