In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town.

Four stories showing the various facets of love.

Two boys set out by train from Kraków to the seaside but lose their travel money and decide to continue their journey “for a smile,” hitchhiking and using every transport they can find.

When a political decision is made as to the location of a new large chemical factory, Stefan Bednarz is put in charge of it. This honest communist party man has to confront the local community opposing the construction.

More documentary in its approach than dramatized history, this is a compelling story about a 1901 children's strike in Wrzesnia near the Polish border with Prussia. Poland was partitioned at this time, and a rigidly patriotic Prussian teacher in Wrzesnia follows the dictates of the Germans in parliament and insists that the children be taught their religion classes in German. When the children refuse to take part in the classes, they are supported by the local priest, but that does not save them from being beaten. They are also kept after school and tormented in other ways as well. Newspapers, parents, and the nation as a whole get involved, transforming a simple children's strike into a national incident.

A taxi driver decides to take part in a robbery to earn money for the treatment of his sick wife.

A moral story about two people who have completely different attitudes to life and people. The duel of the heroes ends tragically.

Raised by the monks, Stanisław gets involved in a scheme to murder the king.

Set before the first World War in part of Poland under Austrian occupation, the story of a young boy in primary school who later grows up to become a rebellious, poetic-minded teen in the same school when the national movement toward liberation is under way. The story of a country where church and state work together to suppress the human spirit.

The last days in the life of Edward Dembowski (1822-1846), the organizer of the Kraków Uprising in 1846. The informal leader of the uprising, determined to fight for the unification of Polish lands and the liberation of the peasants, negotiates with other politicians.