The struggle between poor villagers, who are eager to build a co-operative mill and a cultural centre, and the village wealthy men - the miller and the kulaks - who are desperate to stop the farmers.
Poland, during World War II. Martha Weiss, a Jewish woman, arrives at the Auschwitz extermination camp with her family. She is assigned the role of interpreter, but her loved ones are much less fortunate.
A film dedicated to miners, showing the hardship and risk of working in a mine. Devoid of verbal commentary, it draws its impact from the form: suggestive cinematography close to the pre-war avant-garde, dynamic editing closely linked to music. Brzozowska was accused of formalism at the 1949 Congress of Filmmakers in Wisła, where socialist realism was proclaimed.
