At 56 years of age Mita Pantic is still only a junior clerk in his company. Another typical workday for him is starting at 6 a.m. as frustration awaits at every turn from the moment he gets up. Trying to get ready to go to work, he can barely get a turn to use the bathroom in the crowded apartment. Other members of the household are not without their frustrations either, meaning that nagging and shouting are a staple of their home life at any time of day.

Zona Zamfirova is set in the eastern Serbian city of Niš in the 19th century. The plot follows the story of Zona Zamfirova, a local rich man's daughter, and the vicissitudes of her affair with Mane, an ordinary goldsmith. As it was undesirable for the daughter of a rich man to marry a craftsman, the two are at first divided, with the possibility of Zona marrying Manulać, who came from a wealthy family. Everything is, however, changed as Mane organizes a successful conspiracy to keep Zona for himself.

Through an intimate reconstruction of an important phone call, When The Phone Rang investigates dislocation and the nature of remembering. In the protagonist's eleven year old mind the phone call erases her entire country, history and identity and hides its existence in books, films and memories of those born before 1995.