Guy Maddin (played by Erik Steffen Maahs as an adult, and Sullivan Brown as a child), returns to Black Notch, a deserted island on which stands a lighthouse that was his family home, an orphanage run by his parents, to slap a fresh coat of paint on the lighthouse. The film is divided into twelve chapters, each of which is a flashback that Guy's ancestral house-painting has brought to the fore of his memory.