In 1945, as Stalin sets his hands over Poland, famous painter Wladislaw Strzeminski refuses to compromise on his art with the doctrines of social realism. Persecuted, expelled from his chair at the University, he's eventually erased from the museums' walls. With the help of some of his students, he starts fighting against the Party and becomes the symbol of an artistic resistance against intellectual tyranny.
Lulek, a hit man, is released from prison and given an offer he can't refuse by the man who put him away. If he kills the chief of the Central Bureau of Investigations, he will earn a huge sum of money and have his record cleared so he can leave.
The rise and fall of the most distinguished Polish-Gypsy poetess Bronislawa Wajs, widely known as Papusza, and her relationship with her discoverer, writer Jerzy Ficowski.