Laine is a college girl from a bland middle-class suburb in Latvia. As Laine’s father distances himself from his crumbling marriage and his family, Laine is unable to cope with the separation and discovers the edgy Riga party scene, where she falls in love with seasoned raver Gunda. Going from rave to rave, the girls journey into a drug-fuelled underworld of anarchy, freedom and exploration.

Summer, 1989. City girls, Paula and Laura, spend their summer holidays in a small town with their cousins, Maija and Linda. Four girls, left unattended, enjoy freedom, imitate the life of adults, plunge into reckless adventures and get into trouble. Based on true events, nine-year-old Paula’s story of growing up is set against the background of time when Latvia made her first steps towards independence.

In the late 1970s – at a time when the fiercest propaganda against Western culture was being waged throughout the USSR – an ardent rock and roll fan sets up a successful and illegal underground jeans factory in a Latvian psychiatric hospital.

The 14th of June 1941, Soviet-occupied Latvia. Without warning, the authorities break into the house of Melanie and her husband Alexander, and force them to leave everything behind. Together with more than 15 000 Latvians, Melanie and her son get deported to Siberia. In her fight against cold, famine and cruelty, she only gains new strength through the letters she writes to Alexander, full of hope for a free Latvia and a better tomorrow.