The stories of the aristocratic Lilliehjelm family, the middle-class Widing family and the poor Kajander family from the Finland's independence through the Civil War and the Roaring Twenties ending during the Second World War.

The Soviet army breaks through the Finnish defences on the Karelian Isthmus in June 1944, advancing with overwhelming force. Somehow, the Finnish troops must find the strength to fight back, with all odds against them. The Battle of Tali-Ihantala was the largest battle ever fought in the history of the Nordic countries. This film depicts the true events through five separate stories.

Sammeli from Näljängä and Einari from Haataja, who were hunting bears, encounter Natalia, a cow that has crossed the eastern border. In the name of friendship between neighboring countries, Natalia is asked to return to the Soviet Union.

A poem about the poetic pursuit that in a harmonious way longs for death to occur. Life's desires and worries have done much harm to the poetic self and the person sees death as a help to loosen a large weight from their shoulders.

In this somber, psychological drama about the conflict between a man's innermost feelings and a society that puts these feelings in a strait jacket, the mood is ruminative and depressing throughout. Alone, Viktor (Sven Wolter) heads off for his usual summer vacation to some islands where he can ostensibly look for antiques for his wife's shop in Stockholm. His marriage is a failure or worse -- he raped his wife before he left home, and he is obsessed by erotic imaginings. Once on the islands, he makes friends with a little girl whose mother is mentally disturbed and is kept by her husband in a locked room. The islanders are as tight-lipped as Viktor, and any communication is stiff and artificial. Viktor's own alienation begins to slip as he takes surprising, violent action to turn around the imprisoned mother's life -- but it does not work, nothing seems to work -- and his last actions indicate that he may not be willing to simply give up.

A middle aged widower Sanna has emigrated to Sweden after her husband's death . She lives in Linköping with her two children and works in the local library. During one of the lectures held for the immigrants in the library, she meets doctor Peter Mackus and starts exchange letters. Quite soon they fall in love.

Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872) was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, "Seven Brothers/Seitsemän veljestä". Although Kivi was among the very earliest authors of prose and lyrics in Finnish language, he is still considered one of the greatest of them all.

Matti and Niila, growing up in the mid-sixties in the harsh and conservative environment of a Finnish-speaking part of Tornedalen in Swedish Laponia, close to the Finnish border. Their big dream is to become rock stars. In the present the now grown-up Matti feels guilt for the death of his drug-addicted rock star friend Niila.

1943: Nine-year-old Eero whose father is killed during the war is brought to Sweden to foster parents to his protection like thousands of other Finnish children. Eero feels lost, particularly as his foster mother Signe behaves very unfriendly. She was expecting a little girl and still mourns for her daughter who drowned in the sea.

The very first American-style Post Office robbery in Finland. In the midst of the 60's a gangster quartet led by Hilarius Ruokonen splits up and go into hiding after the heist.