Writer
Prague, 1920. Milena's father wants her to follow in his footsteps and be one of the first female doctors in Czechoslovakia, but she is determined to be a writer. She elopes to Vienna with the Jewish music critic Ernst Pollak, and starts a correspondence with Franz Kafka. She leaves Pollak and returns to Prague with her father, where she befriends and translates Kafka. As a journalist, Milena covers the 1923 Ruhr worker's strike and meets the communist architect Jaromir.
Editor
Experiencing something of a mid-life crisis after his beloved son marries and moves out, a factory worker makes some drastic changes in his life, moves in with the boy and his wife, and sets them all on the path to a communal lifestyle.