Mali, 1960. The youth of Bamako dance the twist to rock and roll music newly imported from the West and dream of political renewal. Samba, a young socialist, falls for spirited Lara during one of his missions to the bush. To escape her forced marriage, she secretly flees with him to the city. But Lara’s husband won’t let them be and the Revolution soon brings painful disillusions as they dream of a future together.

Anat, a single mother and a devoted literature primary school teacher, is impatiently waiting for her son’s discharge from the army. But exactly on the due date of his release, a soldier is kidnapped and a new war breaks out. The condition of her shell-shocked father, Ya'akov, starts to deteriorate as Ido calls to say that all discharges have been put on hold. The angst-ridden Anat tries to get him back home, appealing to the kindness of the commanding officers. Ido returns, but her spirit is broken when she discovers that discharges were not suspended - it was he who volunteered to fight. Their symbiotic relationship goes downhill, Ido returns to the border post and the battle flares up. Before his unit enters Lebanon, Anat, who feels trapped between her father and her son, decides to take matters into her own hands.

Avigail, an overweight and insecure 18-year-old midshipwoman, returns home to the stuffy apartment in Jerusalem which she shares with her dysfunctional mother and with her young sister. Avigail hopes to untie the chains of her childhood, But something else happens when she returns home: Her young sister got knocked up. Now, instead of getting rid of her virginity- she has to get rid of a baby.