The film opens with actual news footage of protests in front of the
American embassy in Belgrade following the
"Kosovo is Serbia" protest rally that was held in response to the
17 February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence by
ethnic Albanians inhabiting Serbia's southern
province of Kosovo. This news footage is intercut with shots of the movie's main protagonist,
skinhead Novica, protesting by leading chants and lighting flares in front of the embassy while he's also providing narration. The story than backs up as Novica, a timid and geeky high school student with frumpy clothing and disheveled thick hair, is introduced. He lives in
Belgrade where his life revolves around attending advanced math classes for gifted kids and taking part in math competitions. Due to his awkwardness around people, his social life is nothing to speak of—his only friends are his stoner cousin Mirko as well as an even nerdier math colleague Stanislav. At a math competition as the students are working away solving problems, Novica is pressured into facilitating
cheating by Relja, a confident skinhead full of bravado who is also gifted at math but doesn't quite possess Novica's math problem-solving skills. Relja is seated relatively close to Novica at the competition and is stuck on a question that he can't solve. Flattered by the attention from a kid placed much higher on the high school social scale, Novica passes Relja the solution scribbled on a piece of paper. The competition supervisor notices something untoward occurred and tells Novica to report the person he had helped without penalty to himself. Wanting to cover for Relja, Novica purposely wrongly points out nerdy Stanislav as the recipient of his help, leading to the supervisor throwing both Novica and Stanislav out thus breaking her promise to spare Novica. Outside, Relja is happy and impressed with Novica's behaviour under pressure, handing him a copy of
Hitler's
Mein Kampf as well as extending an invite to a lecture by professor Hadži-Tankosić at the
University of Belgrade's
Faculty of Philosophy. Novica brings his cousin Mirko along who—dissatisfied with the
right-wing,
anti-Semitic overtones in professor's lecture—leaves early on. Novica, on the other hand, remains and is very much receptive to what he's hearing. The next day, Relja takes Novica to a football match since his skinheads are active as fans of FK Radnik—corrupt lower-league club financed by the local gangster nicknamed Pufta. Ostensibly faithful supporters of the club, they don't actually care much for football and mostly use the matches as a public platform to raise the group's profile and further their right-wing political agenda through racist chanting, violence, and
hooliganism. Additionally, skinheads have an extremely antagonistic relationship with the club's financier Pufta, regularly getting into fights with "Pufta's
diesel boys"—a small fan group on his payroll. Since he doesn't own the club, Pufta's motivation for getting involved with football is taking advantage of his vaguely defined "financier role" in order to siphon off the funds from player
transfers to clubs abroad. As he conducts his business in ruthless manner, his biggest rivals are similarly-run FK Kosančić, a club that also has a financier—a mafia widow. At this particular match, FK Radnik is playing
FK Novi Pazar and there's no shortage of hateful chants and violence as Novica and Relja, among others, get taken to the police station where they're questioned by corrupt inspector Milutin and young idealistic policewoman Lidija who had recently joined the force. She immediately notices that Novica doesn't quite fit the usual skinhead profile and encourages him to get out, even handing him her personal contact in case he ever needs help. Couple of days later, Relja formally introduces Novica to the various individuals that make up his skinhead,
white supremacist group, including his sexy girlfriend Mina and computer geek Svarog, all of whom hang out in an underground
swastika-adorned cave where they mostly guzzle beer and listen to hard core bands such as
Direktori. As it turns out, Novica already knows Mina from the neighbourhood (they once got jumped by a group of diesel boys, barely managing to escape) and already harbours some emotions towards her. Mina seduces Novica, symbolising his seduction into the world of
racist skinheads. Hanging out one night, under the influence of alcohol, the group is walking along the river quay when they run into one of the diesel boys who's all by himself. In addition to belonging to their hated rival group, he's also
Romani, which makes him even more of a target in their eyes. Relja however orders them not to bother, but Novica who is for the confrontation with the others backing him with words, charges and beats the guy with fists. Relja and the others pull Novica from killing the
Gypsy but he surprises all by taking construction block piece and kills the Gypsy. Shocked by the gruesome crime Novica just committed, other skinheads panic a bit before regrouping and deciding to dump the body into the river and sink it with rocks. == Cast ==