Adapted from Ann Holm's book, I Am David follows the story of the titular David, who grows up in a Bulgarian labor camp in the 1950s. He doesn't know why he is there or what happened to his family, of whom he has only flashes of memory. At the age of twelve an escape is arranged for him (by whom and for what reasons are only revealed near the end of the movie), and he is told to make his way alone across the frontier with Greece, south to Salonika, stow away in a boat headed for Italy, and then head north to Denmark. David travels alone through a world he has never experienced, following the only advice he was given: "Trust no one." Along the way, as he evades capture, meets people, and begins to understand how the world works, his past is revealed in rapid flashbacks of memory, centering on a pivotal event in the camp, more and more details of which are revealed as the movie progresses.