Petra Havlínová

Martin, a poor student, volunteers to go on a quest to find a cure for the princess Adriana, who is stricken with a strange illness. Unknown to Martin or anyone else, the princess is actually under the spell of the powerful magician Andlobrandini, who is preparing a rejuvenating elixir made from the blood of nine men's hearts.

The sore and tender hearts of a young couple with a toddler are explored in this drama. The little girl, four years old, is not aware that she is doing anything distressing while she ambles about the house on the day after a post-examination celebration by her father, a university student. Even though hung over, he tries hard to be patient with her. The beginning of the story follows her on her little adventures. The girl comes down with a fever, which kills her before anything can be done, and the student and his photographer wife mourn and comfort one another. Little encounters with children cause the mother pain she is seldom free of, until she gives birth to their next child, a son.

The town is waking up. The bus driver Josef Král is saying goodbye to his wife Vera who is in a state of advanced pregnancy. At the rolling mill, the master craftsman Mares is preparing for retirement, which is now only two days away. Elderly Simon who grows and sells vegetables at the market has problems with his wife. Their little home has to give way to a new development but the wife Simonka refuses to move out. The chairman of the workers' council has troubles with the miner Adam, who has started drinking. He doesn't know that Adam is getting divorced and fears he may lose his young son to his wife.

It is summer 1944. The war is far away from Slovak mountains for the time being. The head of forest management Borodác brings a new employee to complete the eight woodcutters work team of Czechs, Slovaks and one Pole - the young guy is Martin Uher, a former clerk form Prague. The eight tough men do not trust the newcomer at first, but as time is passing, they got used to him. After some time, Martin gets next to Julika, a young wife of the gamekeeper Tkác (Vlado Müller) and they begin to go out secretly. The gamekeeper knows that Martin had promised to cooperate with German Gestapo, after he had experienced a hard interrogation. In avoiding to be a grass, Martin leaves Prague to hide in Slovak mountains. Tkác wants Martin to inform on his colleagues who hide guns in the forest to ready to use them against Nazis.

The waitress Gita from the hotel "Bobí vrch" approaches her lover who has not left his wife yet and gives him an ultimatum: if he does not do all according to her wish, she will announce to the police his machinations with foreign currency.

The fifteen year old Maruska (Lenka Korínková) starts as a new staff in the porcelain warehouse. For the boss Svetla (Míla Myslíková) it is the last straw. She asked to extend her staff consisting of four girls and a retired lady by a man, not a child. The kind and ever fussy Svetla, battling in vain with overweight decides to leave her position and to take another one in the office. As soon as she finds out that the position will be taken by Arnost Jarolím (Josef Langmiler), she insists on a hand over inventory.

It is the summer of 1945. A party of young people are enjoying the beginning of a new life to the full. For them this is the year one. One of them, law student Pavel, is more attracted to film than to law. With his eight-millimeter camera, he films everything that catches his attention. One day he captures an interesting face on film, a girl with an air of mystery. Pavel visits the girl, whose name is Helena, and meets hers and her elder energetic sister Olga. From Olga, he learns that the girls have spent the years of German occupation in a concentration camp and cannot forget the horrors they have lived through.

After returning home from the army, Vasek (Ladislav Potmesil) has married Bozka (Eva Trejtnarová) and the couple now live at her parents' house. Vasek is unhappy both with his work and with sharing the house with Bozka's parents. He and his friend Ruda (Oldrich Vlach) decide to take a temporary job in Ostrava for a year. Bozka is against this, but Vasek gets his way. Mining is hard work but Vasek gradually adapts to it. He gets homesick from time to time and wants to go back, but his pride always wins out. Once he really does travel back to see Bozka, but he doesn't find her at home.

Marek (Jirí Holý), formerly a driver of a long-distance lorry, has served his term for smuggling art works abroad and is released from jail. Years ago, he sacrificed himself and confessed his guilt on behalf of his companions - the drivers Krása, Jelínek, Hess and Novák from the Ministry of Culture who gave them tips. Marek finds Hess and tells him that now he expects the gang to compensate him for the wasted years of his life.