Engineer Luka (Slavko Stimac) is building a scenic rail line linking a small Bosnian town to Serbia. He loves his high-strung wife, Jadranka (Vesna Trivalic), and is proud of his son, Milos (Vuk Kostic), an aspiring soccer star. But chaos strikes when his wife runs off with a cymbal player, the Balkan conflict breaks out and Milos becomes a soldier and then a POW. A plan by officials to free Milos by trading him for a captive Muslim woman is complicated when Luka and the captive fall in love.