The story revolves around a beautiful young woman who lives with her husband (Ibrahim). He supports both his mother and his wife in a modest home, working as a street vendor. They live happily together until he becomes addicted to alcohol, and their lives are turned upside down.
The weekly brass band rehearsal is an enjoyable, light-hearted occasion. Then Mathew, the conductor, introduces James, a newcomer to the village, who is an enthusiastic bandsman from the north, where they do these things properly.
Beate Klarsfeld, a German Protestant housewife, who, with the help of her Jewish law-student husband, Serge, begins an unrelenting campaign after World War II to bring Nazi war criminals to justice.
Nathaniel Box, a self-styled prophet, along with his daughter Barbara and her fiancé Curtis, holds a night time press conference in an underground car park, devoutly believing that "a new Messiah for a New Age" will appear there before dawn - and their wait does not go unrewarded.