Irma has been sent to the front immediately after her marriage to Erik Vuori. Irma and her new "Lotta" companions find themselves in many dangerous situations during the fighting of the Continuation War. Irma is also concerned about Erik's loyalty.

Mauno, an orphan boy, moves from the countryside to Tampere to live with his foster parents, Iida and Eero, who support him in his music studies. As an adult, Mauno travels to Helsinki to search for Helena, a Karelian girl he rescued during the war, who is studying violin. At first, the girl does not recognize Mauno, but a joint concert changes the situation.

A couple decides to adopt a child. At the orphanage, they hear three different stories about the children who have arrived there and their fates.

Little Pu spends a summer in Norrland with all his relatives. He and his brother get to hear the story about the watchmaker who hung himself, learns to shoot with a bow and follow his father on a bicycle trip.

Lasse divorces his second wife Pirko when it turns out that he has a child with Raija. They get married, but as Lasse reflects on his three marriages, he soon becomes unsure whether marrying for the sake of the child was a wise decision after all.

In 1984, ten Swedish directors joined together in the trading company Filmgrupp 10 HB to jointly produce a period document in the form of film.

In this melodrama about love in wartime, Angela (Ida-Lotta Backman) is a Finnish nurse in Lapland who begins a torrid affair with Thomas Schmidt (Mathieu Carriere), a wounded German army captain. Their love for each other is verboten in Finland, where the Germans occupy northern Lapland until the end of the war. Finland had formed a brief alliance with Germany to fight an invading Russia in the winter of 1939, but when the Russians won that battle and took more than 16,000 square miles of land away from Finland, it was too late to successfully rout the Germans from Finnish soil. So for the entire war, the Finns were fighting Germany on their own national territory -- which makes the love affair between a Finnish nurse and German soldier a very complex issue. While Angela receives different reactions from her friends, acquaintances, and relatives, she continues on with her love for the German, against odds which are greater as time goes by.

A salesman and his son sexually abuse several generations of an indigent family's women as payment for debt. Janni must see his mother, sister, niece and wife all being exploited, and the family grow with the abuser's kids.

Jobless inventor Justus begins to help people to become happy together with a homeless girl named Bella.