Set during the Nazi occupation of Poland, in which Michał witnesses the murder of his mother, wife and child. He is hurled into a life that literally is not his own; a surreal world littered with trapdoors, doppelgängers and wormholes. It also tells the true untold story of a vaccine laboratory where Jews and members of the resistance were employed as feeders for parasites infected with typhus.
Film opens with the mad rush of haphazard freedom as the concentration camps are liberated. Men are trying to grab food, change clothes, bury their tormentors they find alive. Then they are herded into other camps as the Allies try to devise policy to control the situation. A young poet who cannot quite find himself in this new situation, meets a headstrong Jewish young girl who wants him to run off with her, to the West. He cannot cope with her growing demands for affection, while still harboring the hatred for the Germans and disdain for his fellow men who quickly revert to petty enmities.
Three stories describing the life of the inhabitants of Warsaw, each set in a different time period.
A school reunion is called to commemorate Adam, who died during the Second World War while defending a bridge. Unexpectedly, Adam shows up just before the ceremony. It turns out that he was only wounded, and after a war started a family and lived an ordinary life. To avoid the truth from spreading town Adam is asked to leave so that he can still be revered as a hero.
During the 1920 Silesian uprising, seven brothers take part in the struggle with the Germans to keep the region in the Polish hands.
A student strikes up a friendship with a young uneducated construction worker to gather material for her work about worker hotels.
A young journalist from Warsaw goes to a small town of Kamienica to prepare a report on a motorcycle gang.
When it is discovered that the Zygmunt mine in Upper Silesia has been deemed unprofitable and is to be closed by flooding, the miners go on strike and a violent demonstration ensues.
When Stanisław Czermień is wrongfully accused of rape and murder, he decides to exonerate himself and track down the real criminal.
The professor loses his wallet. Thinking that he has fallen prey to a thief, he takes it from the man whom he suspects of theft.
A young man looking for work in Warsaw has to overcome many hurdles in the world of bureaucracy to finally get employed.
A retired army colonel learns that years ago, during the 1939 September Campaign he was ordered to give medals to the ten bravest soldiers in his company. He asks his son to help him out, so he sets out on a journey to find surviving soldiers and judge if they are worthy of the honor.
The subject of the film is the problem of the migration of young people from the countryside to the cities in search of an easier life. The meeting of the whole family - whose paths have diverged a long time ago - with the sick father and a long conversation with him determine the final decision of the film's protagonist, Janek: he will return to where he comes from, to the countryside, to his fatherland.
An official falls victim to hooligans. He recognizes one of the attackers at a party organized by his director.
Jaruga, the chief of the local branch of Security Office leads a fight against a Home Army unit led by a man known as Boruta and begins to suspect that one of his men was planted by the insurgents. Another Security Office agent arrives to uncover the conspiracy and deal the final blow to Boruta.
Young Marcin wishes to escape his life in a village and make a career in a city.
Young man struggles with being rejected by society.
An American officer and a North Vietnamese prisoner of war are stranded and chained together in the jungle during the Vietnam War.
The film is set in the summer of 1944. The Home Army branch operating in the Sądecki region is decimated by the Germans during an attempt to take over the drop of weapons and ammunition from England. About 20 soldiers break out of the encirclement, including the commander - Major "Dziadek" - and his deputy - Captain Stańczyk. Partisans are trying to get to the ruins of a nearby castle, where the last ammo crate is supposed to have landed.
Before his son's matura exam a father tries to bribe the exam committee.
