Matjaž Klopčič

The first days of war in Ljubljana. The young hero Niko experiences the bloody and violent transition from childhood to manhood. Based on the novel by Beno Zupancic.

Doctor Janez, a somewhat elderly lawyer, tired of urban life, pays a few week's visit to his relative Presecnik, a well-off farmer living in highland village. Farm life holds a great attraction for him, particularly because a deep and secret love develops between himself and Presecnik's daughter Meta. After a few serene and cheerful days spent on the farm, filled with pleasant labor and walks together with Meta in the unspoilt surroundings, he has to return to Ljubljana to resume his office work. But he cannot forget Meta and he makes his mind to buy a property not far from the Presecnik home and and to become a farmer. He does indeed buy a farm and sets out again to the Presecnik home to ask Meta to be his wife.

As she tries to cope with the changes in Yugoslav rural life brought about by increasing modernization, the Widow Karolina wishes she had become a mother. As difficult as things are for her, they are nonetheless much more difficult for her more-conservative and less-thoughtful neighbors.

The film follows Ruža, a woman who returns to her hometown after a long absence. She faces challenges and conflicts related to her past and her relationships with the people around her.

The feeling of being incapable of controlling your own life and general uselessness make people want to escape the world around them. In spite of the feeling that they possess some creative force, they still feel they waste their time and lives.

Oton, a young boy, is growing up while his hometown Ljubljana changes, from 1934, when King Alexander of Yugoslavia is killed in France, through first the Italian and then the German occupations of the city, until the arrival of Communism.

This three-part historical epic of the lives and misfortunes of the Vrhunc family in the former Yugoslavia is divided into the years of 1914, 1924, and 1944. In 1914, the wealthy Vrhunc patriarch owns valuable land and operates a lucrative mine. He is conservative and wants to hold on to the status quo, and so when the region breaks away from Hapsburg rule, he loses out. His wife, in the meantime, is a tragic figure who has an unhappy solution to her stifling existence with her husband and children. In part II, set in 1924, the fascists and communists are fighting for footholds among the population and in the government, and the Vrhunc family is torn apart because their own allegiances are divided between the two opposing extremes. In part III, the family suffers the most, as Nazi collaborators are rounded up and shot by Partisans, and chaos reigns.

The story describes a staid and apparently very ordinary Austrian teacher on holiday on the Southern Adriatic coast. The sensation of renewal and refreshment from the sea, sun and salt air is described in physical terms.