In vibrant, concentrated scenes, a century of life unfolds: The girl Seka from Sarajevo rides with her father to Bosnian mountain villages. In the 1930s, as a young journalist in Zagreb, she meets a German emigrant, a man from the theater with a crocodile. Ado is the youngest son of a noble, imperial loyal district council family, yet he is a rebel and a communist. They fall in love, and two children are born. When German troops invade Zagreb, they are swept away to wartime Berlin and further north to the cool Baltic Sea. Seka and Ado lose each other; she finds him again in the concentration camp's external camp Leuna and bravely smuggles him out for a night in exchange for a pack of cigarettes. After the war, they pin their hopes on East Germany. They move to Weimar to establish a free, modern theater school. However, the family is shaken.