The miner Dařbuján has a lot of children that he cannot support and another one has just been born. He needs to find a godfather and three are offered: God, the Devil and Death. Dařbuján chooses Death because he is the only one who is fair, he treats the poor and the rich equally. When Dařbuján is considering what to do to provide for his family, Death advises him to get a doctorate and immediately offers him help in his new trade. If Death stands at the feet of a sick person, Dařbuján will heal him within three days. However, if he stands at the head, the sick person is finished and Dařbuján must not interfere in his trade...

A former aircraft mechanic wants to start a new life in a small border village after a stint in prison and working in the mines. But things don't work out as he would have liked and bad luck follows him. By an unfortunate coincidence, he even falls under suspicion of double murder...

The first part of a loose trilogy about the travails of two orphaned siblings, thirteen-year-old Alenka and twenty-three-year-old Zbyněk, is based on the peculiar situation of a family in which the siblings must replace each other's parents. The brother would like to get married, but is prevented by his sister, who is jealous of everything around him. So he brings his girlfriend Katherine, whom he likes, to the flat as a lodger...

Two young returnees from the First World War face a difficult future because they cannot find work. One eventually finds a job as an electrician, the other breaks into the Social Democratic press, where he gets the chance to watch up close how the Social Democratic leadership deceives its members and enters the service of the ruling classes. And a newly-trained journalist solves the problem of whether he should also adapt to the corrupt environment...

The film depicts the fate of the residents of an apartment block in Prague’s Jewish quarter following the invasion by German troops in 1939. Among them is an elderly widow who had once disowned her son and now wishes to bring him to Brazil; there are also the owners of a stationery shop, who are driven to ruin by the German occupiers. The caretaker Glaser, who is of German descent, also comes under pressure when his son is arrested in a communist pub. To save his own skin, he informs on two young people who are active in the resistance.

The three Potůčks live in a house in Ouplavice: a widower grandfather, a son whose wife has run away, and a still unmarried grandson. The father works as chairman of the agricultural cooperative, the son leads the local youth and the pensioner grandfather supplies the two of them with lots of witty advice through the trumpet of his inseparable pipe. They've got a lot on their minds right now. Their village is in competition with neighbouring Piscory, and their opponents are using dishonest weapons to fight...

The sad hero of the story, Petr, an ordinary lawyer in a construction company, is crowded into a small apartment in Žižkov with his wife and grandparents, desperately struggling with the lack of money. One day he offers an old man a seat on a crowded trolley bus and is generously rewarded for his good deed, for the unknown old man is a fabulous grandfather. He gives Peter a magic bell and the opportunity to make three wishes, but the first two slip through his fingers. For the third, the astonished man must take time to think...

A fairy tale story about how the enchanted mill was freed from ghosts and how the shepherd Franta knew fear when he had to confess his love to Verunka...

Five short stories: The Master and the Twentieth Disciple; Every Week is Sunday; It's Boniface's Fault; The Raggedy Song; The Spider's Web.