Italy, 1959. A ten-year-old boy called Guido enters a Catholic seminary, fascinated by the idea of becoming a priest. He quickly understands that in order to be a good seminarian he has to submit to an ascetic and unnatural training, consisting in mortification of the flesh, obsession with sin and repression of one's sexual instincts and desires. Guido finds himself up against a deeply hierarchical system, where strict observance of rules and blind obedience to superiors are taught. A system in which thinking for oneself is forbidden.