Transit Times (2026)

In the young Republic of Moldova in 1997, Zina and Victor, both formerly part of the intelligentsia, and their 17-year-old daughter Eva have lost their income: The theater where Zina works no longer sells tickets, and nobody wants Victor’s paintings. For financial reasons, they have sold the piano that Eva, a talented music student, used to play. The electricity is cut off, and Victor moves into his basement studio, where he paints by candlelight. Zina keeps coming up with ideas to help the family scrape by, such as reselling homemade liquor from the countryside. Eva’s friend has a job as a dancer at a nightclub and takes her along. Eva can earn money playing the piano there. The family’s only remaining way to make a fresh start is to rent out their apartment by the day to foreign tourists through an agent, and live in the basement studio in the meantime. The resourceful mother also hears about a piano that has become available at the Diplomats’ Club. When Eva goes there to audition and plays the instrument, a middle-aged guest at the club is moved and invites her to the opera. Eva spends the night in his guest room without him pressuring her. She takes the opportunity to continue staying with him, but before long he makes her pay for it with sex. Meanwhile, Zina obtains forged documents that are supposed to prove her Jewish ancestry and would allow her to move to the West. When she forbids her daughter to work at the nightclub, Eva impulsively joins her friend, who is just setting off for Istanbul with other girls to work there. The nightclub owner and Zina chase after the minibus full of young women, and he uses a gun to get Eva out. Zina now sets the emigration process from Moldova in motion. The German consul who is supposed to approve her case turns out to be the very man Eva met at the Diplomats’ Club.