Petre Orsa, a young peasant gets a job at the Hunedoara Steel Mill with the dream of becoming a top-notch steel man, having Mihai Solca – a sort of communist industrial hero – as his role model. He starts low moving dirt around with a shovel but he soon gets into the team of an old steel man, foreman Tudor Baci.
An engine driver is taken prisoner in 1944 and ends up in a camp behind enemy lines. He escapes together with a soviet prisoner and a professor and make their way back to Romania.
Vying for Principality of Moldavia's throne the descendants of Prince Stephen the Great start a bloody civil war in 1612.
