In 1968, the State Security officer Naydenov is given the task of keeping close eye on three young musicians - jazz pianist Samuel, opera singer Pavlina and violinist Yulia, who, in the stifling atmosphere of the totalitarian regime in Bulgaria, are trying to preserve their integrity and freedom and are suspected of planning to defect to the West. After a series of encounters with Naydenov, their fate is changed forever. Samuel refuses to become an informer, so Naydenov puts a stop to his jam sessions and the jazz festival he’s been planning. Samuel attempts to defect, swimming underwater across the border with his girlfriend, the Czech jazz singer Mirka, but unfirtunately they are shot by the border guards. Instead of going to a classical music festival in Vienna, Pavlina is forced by Naydenov to go to Moscow at the insistence of Shumov, director of the Philharmonic and an informer for State Security. Despite Naydenov’s efforts to protect Pavlina from Shumov, tragic circumstances lead to her insanity in Moscow. After the tragic events with these people, Naydenov begins to question whether it is worth to sacrifise a human life just in the name of ideological dogma he serves. Shumov has now shifted his lust towards Yulia, but, thanks to Naydenov, her dreams of a musical career in the West are fulfilled. But Naydenov has to pay a price for this: he is arrested, then released, but dismissed from the secret service. Months later, like Samuel, Naydenov succsessfully crosses the Bulgarian border into Turkey.