A triptych of literary adaptations explores past, present and future in rural Turkey. “Düne Özlem” (from Hulki Aktunç’s Bir Yergöstericinin Hayatı): A once-famed traveling critic returns after years to the cinema that launched his career—and finds it unrecognizably transformed. “Bugüne Özlem” (from Kemal Tahir’s Arabacı): A horse-drawn cart driver picks up two stranger women en route to a village—unaware they intend to marry him off to their spinster relative. “Yarına Özlem” (from Zeyyat Selimoğlu’s Bıldırcınlar): An old captain haunted by a fatal shipwreck readies quail-hunting with his grandson, even as his daughter-in-law waits in vain for her migrant husband to return from Germany. Each segment poignantly probes longing— for what was, what is, and what might yet come.

When water is poured onto the cotton field, Musa, whose crop is ruined, cannot pay his debt. He has only one option to save his field from the loan shark: to work at Captain Tayfur's sand quarry. He leaves his wife in the village and starts working with a group of workers whose lives are as painful as his own.

Although Sevda is a successful actress, she feels that her life is not going well. She is both separated from her life partner and bored of acting in the same movies. During this time, she gives herself to drink to escape her life. However, a man she meets will make her feel excited about life again.

A portrait of a young, depressed Turkish widow in the slums whose infinite dignity alone looks after her orphan kids is depicted by the son of the town sheriff, who is in love with her.

Going through his daily routine in a stereotypical neighborhood, a street cleaner falls in love with a charwoman. Unfortunately for him, so does his superior officer.