The Felons

Peter Berdon, a Slovene from the border region, flees from Trieste to Ljubljana in the first postwar years. He becomes friends with three older Italian communists, political refugees who, like him, have escaped to Ljubljana from the turbulent Julian March. In the complicated year of 1948, the state security service asks them to act as intermediaries in a certain matter in Trieste. For political reasons, the Italians refuse to cooperate, but Peter offers to carry out the task alone, mainly out of a desire to see Florence, an English teacher he loves. Peter fails to complete the mission, and when he returns to Ljubljana he learns that his friends have been arrested. Together with an acquaintance, Ivan, he becomes involved in petty and more serious crimes, and after a tragic turn of events he is sent to prison in Sremska Mitrovica. There, to his great surprise, he is constantly accused of associating with Italians and of holding the wrong political beliefs. Peter begins to think about escape — and about Florence, who is waiting for him somewhere.