Writer
In Russia in the late 1960s, Elena will do anything to see that her son Yuri succeeds as a pianist: she longs for him to win a competition that will send him to Paris. To ensure his success, she denies her love for an iconoclastic painter for whom she models, prostitutes herself to a Party figure, encourages her son to break with his true love because the girl is a Jew, and, in general, behaves in paranoid ways, believing, for example, that a new lodger, Evgeny, is a KGB spy. She also has her own family secrets, which she will go to any length to keep her son from learning.
Writer
Zhana and Toni meet on a crowded beach. She is hanging around bars; he is seeking amorous adventures. They spent the night together, then jump into Mercedes sport car and get into a breath-taking race. In the morning, they learn that a man has been run over during the night. A dark suspicion comes over them. They travel again the same road again. The resulting confessions strip their masks from them... Believing him to be guilty, Toni wants to turn him in. However, the real culprit is detected. They move on - but in different direction...