A description of Romania before Ceausescu's downfall, through the story of Nela. Daughter of a former colonel of the Securitate, the romanian political police. She refused to become like her sister, an agent of this Securitate, and lives with her father. After he died, she leaves Bucharest, and ends up in a little town, where she meets Mitica, a surgeon, another herself, laughing at everything.

A bunch of comrades with ascending ranks from the same factory go on a illegal arranged hunting trip with a few intended 'romantic' mishaps.

It is late in the Ceausescu era in Romania, and Cristina is having a difficult time with her boyfriend. He wants her to have sex with him before he goes off to do his obligatory stint in the army. She wants him to marry her first. She also gets involved with a slightly rebellious actor, a would-be ladies' man. He has some vague plans to defect - could those be the reason he is receiving mysterious phone calls? Or are they the work of his anonymous admirer?

In 1930s Romania, a desperate gambler exploits an elderly man for casino luck, an act that triggers his own severe psychological undoing. Consumed by madness, he transfers his obsession to a painting that resembles his mother and forces his girlfriend to physically mimic the portrait, driving her to a suicide attempt. As she is committed to a sanatorium, his deranged mind completely detaches from reality against the backdrop of a decaying, pre-war fascist society.