The story is following Ivan, a young boy who wants through a hooligan lifestyle to show his brother and others that he's grown up, but his actions create a cyclic problem that sucks in both him and his brother. He learns about the dark side of the world of grown-ups and the price that must be paid.
Velid, a worker at an explosives factory in the vicinity of Goražde, is fired along with several of his colleagues. While other workers are protesting and starting a strike against the factory Velid falls into depression and goes wandering alone around the city and the banks of the Drina river. Two young and aspiring film directors who are visiting Bosnia bump into him and decide to engage him in their film. This develops in a painful way.
The story begins at the darkest moment in 1916 when the country is occupied, the army on Corfu. The plot follows the historical events until 1921 and the death of King Peter, ie the Great War, the liberation of the country, the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.