After Yana finds out that her best friend is trapped in the war in Ukraine, she is forced to examine the moral compasses within her family. She visits her grandparents, who seem to trust Russian TV and radio more than her own account of events. This intimate drama is based on the reality of families divided by the war in Ukraine, including the author’s own. The film explores the inevitable choices between love and politics, friends and family, silence and resistance.

Gerta grows up in 1930s Brno in a mixed Czech-German family, which brings her into conflict with her father as he embraces Nazi ideology. Despite this, they remain connected through their shared love of music. During the occupation, Gerta joins the student resistance with her beloved Karel, but the war takes everything from her and leaves her with a dark secret that shapes her future. After the war, though innocent, Gerta is violently forced into the wild expulsion and must leave her hometown with her infant daughter. She survives the hardest years on a rural farm, reunites with Karel, and returns to Brno hoping for a normal life—yet the past continues to haunt her. The two-part TV film Gerta Schnirch offers a personal view of 20th-century history through the fate of a woman caught between two worlds.