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1975. The 28-year-old Susanne has been enrolled with the new multi-media program at Copenhagen University for two years, one semester from getting her masters in visual art, specialising in photography, and she plans to apply for one of the few Ph.D. studentships at the Royal Academy for the Fine Arts, having been more or less promised a spot by her current professors, who all consider her extremely talented. However, the Academy is old-fashioned and known to be very sexist, favouring male students almost unanimously, so when she optimistically sends in her application, it is turned down with the reason that her preferred style of photography, the portrait, is out of touch with current tendencies in Danish art and not on par with the Academy's desired quality. Feeling the carpet torn away beneath her feet, two months from graduation, Susanne thus suddenly has to reconsider what to do with her life, her degree not very helpful out in the real world in its current form. After a summer of consideration, she decides to leave Copenhagen, where she has spent most of her life, to return to her birth town of Aarhus in Jutland. Her rich doctor father reluctantly agrees to lend her money, so she can rent a storefront in the Latin Quarter and set up a photo studio, hoping to make a living doing people's portraits and eventually, find another way into the artistic circles in Copenhagen. While in Aarhus, she forms a sense of community with several local women and with their help creates a portfolio that will help her name reach acclaim on an international level.