By the time he died at the age of 28, Egon Schiele had already produced more than 3,000 works, including paintings and drawings, self-portraits, and numerous explicit female nudes. He was the revolutionary artist of the early twentieth century: original, innovative, and daring both in his art and in his way of life.

Schiele was not only a painter; he also wrote poetry and prose. These writings, alongside his paintings, are used by the filmmakers to portray the character of the great artist himself. The film tells the story of his life while creating a kind of psychological portrait of the artist, focusing primarily on Schiele’s complex relationships with the women in his life.

The story unfolds against the backdrop of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where Schiele was born, lived, and ultimately died. In 1918, at the end of World War I, he, his wife, and their unborn child fell victim to the Spanish flu, which claimed millions of lives across Europe.