A poor young Belgian mother wants her petty thief of a boyfriend to be gainfully employed to raise their newborn child, but he has other ideas.

Young, impulsive Rosetta lives a hard and stressful life as she struggles to support herself and her alcoholic mother. Refusing all charity, she is desperate to maintain a dignified job.

Lorna is a young Albanian woman in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a heroin addict. Just as Lorna is about to be granted Belgian citizenship, Claudy finds the strength to detox; this presents a problem not only for Lorna, but for the criminal who brokered the deal.

Abandoned by his father, a young boy is left in the hands of an unqualified childcare provider.

A stroke-afflicted filmmaker is manipulated by a notorious con man.

Sandra is a young woman who has only one weekend to convince her colleagues they must give up their bonuses in order for her to keep her job — not an easy task in this economy.

A joinery instructor at a rehab center refuses to take a new teen as his apprentice, but then begins to follow the boy through the hallways and streets.

After running away from her abusive mother, a streetwise teen seeks refuge with her father, but he rejects her when he learns that she's pregnant.

Two worlds are involved. The internal world, closed, virtually isolated, with just one tenuous, uncertain link with the other world - the telephone. The other, external world exists only to pass from one sealed-off place to another. Call each other? - you lose your voice before you get an answer: your head spins with non-existent voices. Telephone and answering machines are scheming devices. Just waiting in vain.