A French cultural research group arrives in Finland. From Helsinki, the group travels to Saimaa to participate in Midsummer rituals, where the summer night celebrations overwhelm the researchers.

Based on a novel by the late Finnish writer Timo Mukka, this simple story focuses on what happens when Milka (Irma Huntus), a girl barely out of childhood, gets pregnant by Ojanen (Matti Turunen) a rustic fieldhand. Her own mother had been hoping to marry Ojanen, and her daughter's pregnancy turns their lives around. Set in the Lapp country of northern Finland, the scenery is breathtaking, made even more so by the isolation of the region. A sense of natural solitude is underscored by a slow-moving dialogue interspersed with long silences, and the connection between nature and the dialogue is underscored as the young Milka recites poetry while out in the countryside. The fate of Milka and her mother, however, is connected to the decision that Ojanen makes at the end.

An author writes a historical novel about witch persecution and is accused of blasphemy.

Jussi is a magazine editor who lives in an inherited apartment in Kruununhaka with his sister Eeva, who works as a summer editor, and his flight attendant girlfriend Leena.

Klaus Grahn is a young student frustrated with his life. In an attempt to break free from his unfulfilling life he tries to commit the perfect crime and forges a large check. Quickly he runs out of money and the police identifies him as the criminal, and so he boards a train to Tampere where he robs a taxi and shoots the driver. He returns to Helsinki and manages to avoid the police, but his friends and family try to persuade him into giving himself up. Klaus is angered by this, and he flees, plagued by paranoid thoughts until he decides to confront his friends for the last time - this time with a gun.

In 17th-century Pohjola, young Antti Puuhaara is looking for himself, because he has grown up with no knowledge of his childhood. Two actors, the tragedian and the comedian, who were banished from Tsarist Russia to Karelia, had predicted to the crooked merchant Markki Bohattov that Antti's fate would become intertwined with his own. When Antti falls in love with Bohattov's daughter Darja, the father has to arrange for her to marry the tar merchant Arho Mustahatu.

Timo Antero Kuusisto has been sick at home for a few days, and he must go back to school. His dad forces him to wear woollen panties.

Juhani, a welder and Ritva, a right-wing backgrounded, future clerk get married. Soon we see that their marriage seems to be all about long business trips, housing problems, concerns about the money and political disagreements.

A young boy finds a magic talking shoe that can change his voice to that of an adult.