​Fifteen-year-old Jutka and her friend Zsuzsa leave their rural village for Budapest to work in a textile factory and seek independence. Their pursuit of freedom quickly unravels as they face the grim realities of industrial life, a transition compounded by Zsuzsa's unplanned pregnancy and Jutka's own search for stability in a harsh environment.

Sanyi is the driver of a co-op bus and lives in tenancy with his wife and son. In order to get along he buys the auctioned truck of the co-op and becomes a transportation entrepreneur. First everything goes well, they start a construction.

The sixteen year old Bea is on her way home from her sports class when a foreign long- vehicle stops by her and she is asked the way. A shove, the banging of the door, and the long-vehicle pulls away with its victim towards the South. Beas abductors rape her and sell her as a prostitute. She tries to escape, keeps leaving marks behind, hoping that her beloved father, Sándor, will find her.

The 50 years old Ferenc rents an apartment on the Balaton beach, but it has a lot of debt on it. His plan is to make it profitable.

The unskilled, jack-of-all-trades András and his wife, Éva are put in jail for serial work-place thefts, -committed in order to try to ensure a normal living standard for his family - and for aggravated assault committed for self-defence, respectively. Their two small children are put in state care, then given to foster parents. András, still in prison, commits everything to help the released Éva get hold of an apartment and get their children back so that when he will have served his term the family could be together again.