"The back salto ruined my life. Maybe I should do a front one?"

The story of phenomenal Bulgarian weightlifter Angel Guenchev's Olympics rise and subsequent fall from grace. Refusing to submit to the fate of a petty criminal in the post-1989 turmoil, he starts from scratch in search of redemption.

Far above the ground in a circus tent, a young trapeze artist prepares himself for his first dearth-defying leap. He thinks back to his mother, who took her life eight years ago, due to him.

Robby and Jim are two friends working in a circus. When Marina, a new acrobat, enters the show, both men will compete for her love. She needs a partner for a flying number, and one of them will be elected. Then accidents will happen.

The owner of an impoverished circus in Communist-ruled Czechoslovokia plots to flee across the border to freedom, taking his entire troupe of performers and wild animals with him.