Orphan Juli, 18, is determined to become a film director and starts studying filmmaking after moving to Moscow. Following Stalin’s death, she returns to Hungary to prepare her diploma film, but soon the 1956 uprising takes place, and Juli is forced to make compromises when it comes to her career.

A continuation of Diary for My Children, this second installment in Mészáros’s autobiographical coming-of-age quartet shifts mood to reflect a young woman’s growing maturity and love of cinema. And yet: broiling in the turbulent and seditious mood of post-war Hungary, life keeps throwing challenges.