In 1933, Welsh journalist Gareth Jones travels to Ukraine, where he experiences the horrors of a famine. Everywhere he goes he meets henchmen of the Soviet secret service who are determined to prevent news about the catastrophe from getting out. Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture has resulted in misery and ruin—the policy is tantamount to mass murder.
A few years back tragic events tied the fate of three Catholic priests. From then on they meet on every anniversary of the disaster to celebrate their survival. On an everyday basis they have their ups and downs. Lisowski works at the curia in a big city, has a career and is dreaming of the Vatican. Problem is, archbishop Mordowicz, an opulent church official who uses his political influence to build the largest sanctuary in Poland, gets in his way. The second priest, Trybus, is a village parson. He ministers to a poor community and gives in to human weaknesses more and more often. Kukuła is not faring well either. Despite his fervent faith, he loses the trust of his parishioners actually overnight. Soon the stories of the three clergymen are going to join once again.
He considers himself a genius but the publishers refuse to print his works. He loves women but they don’t always understand him. Constantly without money and out of touch with reality. The elegant fop Daniil Yuvachov names himself Kharms- a name just as effective as his appearance. An habitué of unending literary get-togethers and a lover of scandal. Living in society he is completely separate from it. Kharms throws down a gauntlet to his time, audaciously hurling himself into the vortex of reality, just as vague and arbitrary, with the same contradictions, as represented by his spirit.
A big shot prosecutor Teodor Szacki divorces his wife and leaves Warsaw to “start a new life” in picturesque town in southeast Poland Sandomierz. After a short while he is called in to investigate a strange and mysterious murder case. Alienated in provincial reality he struggles to find a killer, when he stumbles upon more victims. While the investigation continues he realizes that all murders are connected to alleged historical Jewish ritual killings. Those murders prompt a wave of antiSemitic hysteria in the town. In his investigation Szacki must wrestle with the painful tangle of PolishJewish relations and real findings of his work that roots of some legends arefantasy, not a grain of truth…
Seven policemen, seven deadly sins, a murder case, secrets and the filth of everyday police work: Traffic Department transports the viewer into the darkest Warsaw streets.
