故事发生在二战结束之后，安东尼娅（维力奇·范·阿麦莱 Willeke van Ammelrooy 饰）带着女儿达尼埃莱（埃尔斯·多特曼斯 Els Dottermans 饰）回到了久违的家乡。安东尼娅乐善好施的善良性格为战后满目疮痍的家园带来的新的希望，她先后收留了痴呆女孩代代（玛丽娜·德·格拉夫 Marina de Graaf 饰）和农夫巴斯（简·德克莱尔 Jan Decleir 饰）等人，组件了一个特殊的家族——安东尼娅家族。
一种温馨又紧密的关系维系着这些并没有血缘关系的家人们，在相互扶持之间，却也存在着难以调和的矛盾。达尼埃莱怀孕后生下了特雷莎（Veerle van Overloop 饰），小特雷莎长大后，却惨遭皮特（Filip Peeters 饰）的强暴。随着时间的流逝，安东尼娅家族不断的壮大着，而安东尼娅自己的生命却走向了尽头。

The Debut is van Brakel's first-length movies as a director, and it too takes up the theme of a child growing up in an adult world. Caroline is a 14-year old whose first love is 40-year old Hugo, a friend of her parent's who just returned from Africa with his wife. The spontaneous attraction the two feel for each other when they meet develops as they enter into a strange relationshop, the somewhat staid Hugo seeling to find some of his lost youth in the impulsive young girl enrhralled with the discovery of ther womanhood and the attention she receives from the devoted older man. In a kind of idyllic isolation they pursue their fragile liason, but the inevitable intrustions of friends, parents and Hugo's wife soon confronts their love with the reality of their ultimately separate worlds.
With the aid of fhe excellent cinematography of Theo van de Sande, Nouchka van Brakel builds up through close attention to detail a portrait of the sharp intelligence of a young woman coming into her own.