Niku tries to earn his living in the chaos of Albania using his most valuable family possession, an aging truck. Everyone around him seems obsessed by foreign countries, like his girlfriend Klara, who wants to be a model in Paris, and the woman next door, who manages to marry an Italian. Niku is one of the few Albanians who doesn’t want to emigrate: he wants to help rebuild his country instead of fleeing from it. But life is hard on Niku. Klara has had enough after yet another random shooting in town and leaves for Paris, his father is dying, and the transport of a gigantic statue of Stalin is too much for his truck. Despite the poverty, violence and chaos that are present throughout the story, Tirana Year Zero is not a grim film. The infectious lust for life of the characters and the absurd situations in which Niku becomes embroiled throw a tragi-comic light on the dilemma of a whole generation of young Albanians: to leave or to stay?