Friedrich Nietzsche remains one of the most influential thinkers of the modern age, igniting minds with provocative aphorisms like, “In life’s school of war, what does not kill me makes me stronger.”

At the youthful age of 24, he was appointed a full professorship at Basel University in Switzerland. In a literary salon there, he met the wealthy patron Malwida Von Meysenbug, who introduced him to his soon to be best friend, Paul Rée, and the precocious Lou Salomé. Fluent in French, German and Russian, Lou was eager to feed her voracious desire for academic achievement: a rare quality for any woman in the 1800's, much less one so fair.

After a lifetime of denying any desire for marriage, Nietzsche was ready to propose. Unfortunately, so was Paul Rée. They each asked for Lou's hand, twice, but were refused in favor of establishing an intellectual ménage à trois, with philosophy as their collective muse. It was the summer of 1882, and Italy was the ideal setting for their unorthodox three-way experiment.

Nietzsche's younger sister, Elizabeth, was deeply envious of Lou's strength and independence, and began to poison the public’s opinion of her. When Lou learned of the slander, she broke off with Nietzsche, choosing instead to live platonically with Rée. Nietzsche was devastated. It was all Elizabeth needed to begin her campaign to send this social climbing vixen back to icy snows of Russia.

Love, Nietzsche is an exploration of what transpires when extremely intelligent, highly motivated people act on conflicting assumptions. It was Malwida's hope that Nietzsche and Rée would groom young Lou to follow in her own footsteps, as a next generation feminist pioneer. Salomé assumed that Nietzsche and Rée had committed to shaping her into an intellectual force of her own, while Rée believed introducing Lou to Nietzsche would bring he and his best friend closer, satisfying a latent homosexual attraction.

Nietzsche was all but convinced that Lou and Rée were his disciples, eager to endorse his trailblazing Philosophy of The Future. And sister Elizabeth saw them all as a threat to her place in history, riding on her brother’s tattered coattails.

Their ambitions collided at full speed in this true story of passion, power and postulation, resulting in a historical tragedy from which no one emerged unscathed.