Before Dawn charts the years of exile in the life of famous Jewish Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, his inner struggle for the "right attitude" towards the events in war torn Europe and his search for a new home.

Out of her love for the great thinker Leibniz, Queen Charlotte commissions a portrait of him. During the portrait sessions, the philosopher and the young painter engage in a passionate struggle for truth in image and likeness, and ultimately for love and death.