Nazi-occupied Croatia, 1941. A young university student named Matija Remenar moves from his small provincial town to Zagreb. During his stay, he notices a beautiful woman in the window across the street from his apartment, falling head over heals for her. He names this woman Nausicaa, after the eponymous character from Homer's Odyssey. Things complicate, however, when he becomes involved in an active suicide investigation of the three tennants who had rented the apartment prior to him. Not only that, but the apartment's original owner, middle-aged mrs. Šlajner, seemingly becomes infatuated with him, despite the huge age gap.

The movie takes place in the early 18th century on the borders between Bosnia and Dalmatia, the crossroad between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice. It deals with issues relating to the region's native Croats as they struggle between to live between two empires and two faiths: Catholicism and Islam.

"Virgina" tells a tale from the 19th century Serbian village near the Adriatic Sea. Because of the extreme patriarchal culture there is a superstition that families without male heirs are cursed. When the wife gives birth to their fourth daughter, father decides that the child will become a so-called "Virgina" and that she will live as a man.