On Saturday, 5 April 1941, one day before the Axis invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a colourful group of random passengers on a country road deep in the heart of Serbia board a dilapidated bus, headed for the capital Belgrade.

The group includes two Romani musicians, a World War I veteran, a Germanophile, a budding singer, a sickly looking man, and a hunter with a shotgun.

Along the way, they are joined by a priest and a pair of young newlyweds who are on their way to the seaside for their honeymoon, and are faced with numerous difficulties: an army roadblock forcing a detour, a farmer ploughing the road which, he claims, stretches over his land, a flat tire, a funeral, two feuding families, a shaky bridge, Krstić Jr.'s recruitment into the army, and a lost wallet.

During the early morning of Sunday, 6 April, amid rumours of war, they finally reach Belgrade only to be caught in the middle of the Luftwaffe raid (Operation Punishment).

Za Beograd[a] (also Sviće zora u subotu,[b] by the first line) is the signature song of the film, sung by two Romani youths.

[8] Miodrag also played roles of Roma musician in the 1994 TV series Otvorena vrata, in the 2004 comedy film Pljacka Treceg Rajha[9] and some others.

He was supposed to shoot the Kovačević script as a contemporary-themed 50-minute TV movie whose story takes place in the late 1970s Yugoslavia on a public transport bus with the central character—an old man (played by Mija Aleksić)—headed to pay a visit to his son who's away serving his mandatory Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) service.

The Mercedes-Benz O 3500 [de][13] bus was chosen by the film's production designer Veljko Despotović based on the description provided by Šijan.

The smoke and the presence of live pigs in the cramped interior space made the filming conditions very difficult for the cast and the crew.

[14] The final bombing scene was originally meant to include wild animals from the bombed Belgrade Zoo roaming through the city's downtown, which indeed happened during actual 6 April 1941 Luftwaffe air-raids; in fact, an old newspaper article documenting this bizarre occurrence served as inspiration for the author Dušan Kovačević to include it in the film.

However, at the time of movie's filming in 1980, Tito died, which resulted in the extended mourning period that effectively canceled all entertainment activities in the country - including the Italian circus tour that was meant to provide the animals for the scene.