Sunday in September 1977, a celebration of the Miners Day. The old Hepnar is sitting at the cemetery and is recalling events from ten years ago. That time the representative of the ministry Barvír announced at the miners meeting that mining in the mines would decrease. He reasoned this decision by the fact the deposits of coal are almost used up. The boss of the mine and most of the miners protested. Barvír did not take their critical objections into account. He announced at the communist district meeting the closure of the business as the mine according to new economic principles did not prosper.

The merging of reality with legend, the image of reality (Ruthenian Verkhovyna in the 1920s) and its reflection in people's minds - this is what characterizes the story of the modern Transcarpathian bandit Nikola Šuhaj, who "took from the rich and gave to the poor". Ivan Olbracht's novel from the 1930s, one of the artistic peaks of modern Czech prose, is a dramatic story about a war deserter, his love for the beautiful Eržica, a story about revenge for wrongs, persecution, betrayal and death. Šuhaj's fate merged with legends in people's memory. By combining elements of the past and the present, document and myth, the story turned into a ballad about how eternal and strong the human dream of freedom and happiness is.

To the intolerant and bloody-minded Prague actor Bergner (Milos Kopecký) is the lead in Moliere's Misanthrope which he is studying now as tailor-made. On top of that he is malicious and he advises to the new actress Helenka (Dagmar Havlová) in such a way that she upsets the theatre director. If Bergner accuses somebody of a mischief and he is wrong, he never apologizes. When he almost crashes an older elegant lady by his car on the zebra crossing, instead of an apology he calls her an old ballet dancer... But in Brno's TV he takes part in a discussion on manners and he gives himself as an example of good manners and grace. In the train he meets a magic old man (Ladislav Pesek) who warns him and admonishes him to change his behavior. After he arrives to Prague the old man's threat comes true.

Two seriously injured patients are brought to the hospital at almost the same time: truck driver Honza Linhart, who had an accident, and a young woman found unconscious in a forest by a man picking mushrooms. The woman is identified as Katerina Marková, the divorced mother of a young girl. Major Kalas (Rudolf Hrusínský) suspects that she is a victim of mugging since a bloodstained small ax has been found near the site of the crime and, according to witnesses, Ms Marková was missing her watch and a bracelet, from which a gemstone has also been discovered. Linhart has lost his only kidney in the accident; in order to live a normal life again, he will need a kidney transplant from the mugged woman if she dies.

Set in Prague during the years leading up to World War II, this family saga tells the story of a cobbler named Vincenc Bursik (Vladimir Mensik), who uproots his clan from the country to the city, only to suffer the loss of his wife and the failure of his shoe business within months. When his daughter moves away to go live with a wealthy businessman as his mistress, Vincenc is left to take care of his two sons, who spend their days in a secret garden vying for the affections of a teenage girl.

For the Novák and Bartáček families, money is king, and they'll do just about anything to get it. While René Novák pitches his parents a lucrative scheme to swindle as many people with the last name Novák in the country as possible, the Bartáček clan decides to pretend to be much poorer than they really are in order to siphon some dollars from an American relative. And it doesn't take long before these separate scams start to intertwine.

In the pulmonary sanatorium, patients live out their small fates. But not everyone takes a responsible approach to their illness. For example, a young student falls in love, the lovers even take a secret flight, but the young man's condition deteriorates dramatically because of it.

The Czech film Svítalo All Night was made to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Army and is dedicated to all those who fought and gave their lives in Prague in the May Uprising of 1945. Behind the historical events, the creators see mainly their simple, unassuming participants. Thus, we are presented with a number of apt portraits, whether it is the central hero Dr. Soukup and nurse Daniela on the side of the fighting Czechs, or a captain and a simple private in a Red Army unit coming to the aid of the fighting Prague, or an old, war-weary German major, who only realises the senselessness of the war at the sight of a fanatical, cynical lieutenant for whom Nazi ideology represents the meaning of life.

Together with a group of temporary workers, a group of experienced labourers is building a land reclamation system to turn the South Bohemian marshes into a "Seventh Continent" of fertile soil.