Dr. Breslașu
Mr. Lazarescu is a retired Romanian engineer, spending his time in the company of his cats and booze. When he starts feeling unusually ill, he first seeks painkillers from his neighbors. It soon becomes apparent that Lazarescu is indeed sick, and an ambulance arrives with a nurse who has a few ideas about what could be the problem. However, a major traffic accident and poor organization leaves little room in Romanian hospitals for the fading Lazarescu.
Waiter
The father, fired two years before retirement, wants to get rehired, requiring the support of his son. The action takes place in a restaurant in Bucharest.
Dumitru is a two-faceted killer: he kills animals and called a hunter, and kills people, and branded as an assassin. Dumitru is just out of prison, for the first time since the fall of communism. Even on the train taking him home, he is planning to return to his past practices as he is involved in a blood thirsty card game with some gypsies. The game turns out badly, and one of those making up the table is killed. He starts on a flight again, this time, bound for his home town, where he finds his wife pregnant by his own brother. Blind with a thirst for vengeance, Dumitru commits one more murder that unleashes a sequence of new crimes and makes him into a wanted serial killer. Life becomes a burden that is too heavy for Dumitru who decides to abbreviate his existence. However, he soon discovers he does not hold all power over himself. God has other plans for him and condemns to him to stay alive. Written by Gonz30
Mitu and Elena get to know each other in the course of a vodka drinking contest and discover that they are both dissatisfied with the status quo. Mitu is about to begin military service and Elena is to be married to a man she does not love. They decide they are meant for each other and plan on a different future, one that is on a collision course with the authorities, and start a mad affair.
In 1925 Romania, young Marie-Therese Von Debretsy refuses the flirtatious advances of her husband's commanding officer. As a result, the cosmopolitan family is reassigned to a brutally bleak and dangerous outpost on the Bulgarian/Romanian frontier where both their relationship and humanity are severely tested.
