Trapped in a nomadic world that makes less and less sense, Eliška yearns for a safer and more stable life for herself and her little brother Aleš. As illegitimate repo men begin frequenting their home, Eliška’s uncertainty about her and her brother’s future reaches a crescendo and she is forced to take action to protect Aleš from this shady and dangerous life.

A little girl who, like Alice in Wonderland, wanders through the landscape of her childhood as if through an enchanted labyrinth, observing and recording the world.

An original story told by Uncle Igor, a son of Russian aristocrats, and his nine year old grandson Tonda. A powerful story of complicated times around 1968, a story full of contrasts: Whether it is the relation between what Grandpa's plentiful life entails and Tonda's imminent children's presence, or between poetry and fine humor and dramatic situations of military occupation. Or generally between everyday worries of a person and the pressure of great history. On grandpa's life story, mapping a big part of the 20th century traumas, one can see how much an individual's fate depends on the movement and changes of history. And how much one can defy it and maintain inner firmness and integrity. Or perhaps just dear life.

Gerta grows up in 1930s Brno in a mixed Czech-German family, which brings her into conflict with her father as he embraces Nazi ideology. Despite this, they remain connected through their shared love of music. During the occupation, Gerta joins the student resistance with her beloved Karel, but the war takes everything from her and leaves her with a dark secret that shapes her future. After the war, though innocent, Gerta is violently forced into the wild expulsion and must leave her hometown with her infant daughter. She survives the hardest years on a rural farm, reunites with Karel, and returns to Brno hoping for a normal life—yet the past continues to haunt her. The two-part TV film Gerta Schnirch offers a personal view of 20th-century history through the fate of a woman caught between two worlds.