The film tells the story of two Highlander brothers – Maciek and Andrzej. After the death of their father, which Andrzej contributed to, and the loss of his beloved Bronka, Andrzej leaves the family home. On his way, he meets the mysterious Wolfram, an anthropologist and climber. He shares with him his mountaineering technique and knowledge about the Prague origins of the highlanders. Andrzej returns to Zakopane, war breaks out. To protect the Highlanders from wartime destruction, he wants to persuade them to cooperate with the Germans. Andrzej and Maciek are standing on opposite sides of the barricade. The brothers' confrontation is bloody and painful.

Cranky, crafty and always immaculately dressed, aged master tailor Abraham Bursztein finds himself facing his winter years in a retirement home after discovering his children have sold his home out from under him. Not one to go quietly, Abraham unexpectedly travels to Poland in order to deliver a suit to a childhood friend who saved his life during the Nazi occupation.

Simona Kossak - daughter of the painter Jerzy Kossak and granddaughter of Wojciech - deprived of the talent that has defined her family for generations, grows up without knowing the warmth of her despotic mother. When, after graduation, she leaves everything - home, tradition, social conventions - and takes up a job as a scientist in Białowieża, she starts life on her own terms.

At the end of the 19th century, somewhere in the outskirts of the Russian Empire, a doctor administers a lethal overdose of ether to a young woman – the object of his desire. After getting away with his crime, he finds employment in a fortress, where he continues his experiments with ether to manage pain and manipulate human behaviour. Despite his evilness, it is not too late for his soul to be saved from eternal damnation…