Set in an unnamed city of an unnamed country during the early 1990s, the story begins in a Home for Children without Parental Care. While many come and go, Klara, Vuk, and Shorty grow up there since birth. They don’t know who abandoned them, or why; they do not dwell on their beginnings. Instead, they work hard to beat the odds and reach a better end. A leitmotif of abandonment and neglect threatens quieter notes of love; cold, grey institutions threaten the melody of music, photography, and sports.
This story belongs to a girl whose sincerity and sarcasm reveal the many faces of hypocrisy, as well as the inhumane neglect of large state bodies meant to protect the smaller individual. It is also the story of a boy whose delicate soul and fighting instinct drive him to strike back and survive when he is victimized by an institution that washes its hands of him.