The story takes us back to 1900 to follow in the wake of Lili d’Alengy (Leila Bekhti), a Parisian darling at the height of her fame, who flees Paris in order to hide her "idiot" daughter. Once in Rome, her life is turned upside down by a meeting with Maria Montessori (Jasmine Trinca), a woman doctor who has developed a method for teaching children with learning difficulties. But if Lili wants to play the public part of a "new woman", an emancipated, modern female, she will have to pay the price – a child born out of wedlock and hidden away. She will soon be forced to choose between her child or her fate.