A director in his midlife-crisis wants to start a new movie and he invites twelve actresses in his flat in Brussels. Every actress tries to convince him of her talent. The director tries to seduce them at the same time but this is not what they want, or at least they do not want to give this impression. When the movie starts, the chosen ones develop into nasty characters who do not listen to their director, f.i. Evelyne quarrels with him. The making of the movie turns into chaos with one of the male characters running after one of the actresses into a river. At the same time the director has to make a travel to Bali to bring back one of his favorites: Gail. The movie is full of quotations of famous writers (Guy Debord) and the title of the movie is the title of a book by Lucien Israël (La Jouisssance de l' Hystérique). The director makes public orations and explains his analysis of capitalism. His call for the revolution is pathetic and it makes the situation at the film set even worse... Like most directors he tends to be ego-maniacal but his chosen actresses don't accept this!