Anthropology professor Michal develops two overwhelming obsessions. The first one is a mummified, 3,000 year-old, perfectly preserved body of a shaman he and his colleagues have recently dragged out of a swamp. The second is an enigmatic student he meets by chance at a railway station.
On his way home, Mikołaj Twardowski is attacked by bandits. He calls on the devil for help, who rescues him from danger. The devil's intentions are not selfless. Twardowski signs a pact with Hell, unaware of what he is agreeing to. Eighteen years pass, and the devil appears at Mikołaj's house with the intention of taking his son away. The cautious Twardowski, just before his death, sends his son to a hermit, who advises him on how to steal the contract his father signed.
The second part of a story about young people entering adulthood in the harsh reality of predatory capitalism. The action takes place in 1994, a few months before the events of the first part.
The story is narrated by ten-year old Staszek, who writes in his diary about his school-friend Jozef. Jozef comes from a family of blacksmiths, all of whom bear the name Jozef. Since he is the sixth consecutive son to be called Jozef, he is nicknamed Szustek (meaning "sixth one").
Thirty-year-old nurse Teresa spends her days caring for elderly, dying people. Janusz, a young man she met at an amusement park, enters the life of this bitter and disillusioned woman. Teresa doesn't have the courage to tell him how she feels, and he also has trouble expressing his emotions. They are helped by Julka, a girl from the neighborhood who likes Teresa. She finds a pile of love letters from the beginning of the century in the trash. By forging Teresa and Janusz's handwriting, she starts a love correspondence between them, rewriting fragments of other people's confessions.
Following a fire at an orphanage, the kids are moved into a seniors' home. A young girl tries to befriend and cheer up an elderly man who is full of regrets at the end of his life.
A mother of three is afraid of losing her husband if he finds out she's pregnant again, so she tries to conceal it.
Mateusz, Igor, Marlon, and Paulina attend the same high school. After returning from Budapest, Mateusz learns that one of his classmates, a boy named Bąbel, has hanged himself on the school playground. Distraught by the tragedy of his friend, he decides to conduct his own investigation into his death. Igor, who found Bąbel's body, knows what happened but is afraid to speak up. The same is true of other students, and even teachers, who are mainly preoccupied with their own personal problems. He sees his last chance in a conversation with Paulina, who is in love with him, but the girl leaves him alone in his fight to find out the truth.
1890s, Russian-occupied Poland. When Marcin Borowicz begins his gymnasium education, he is confronted with brutal indoctrination and attempts of resistance.
A forty-year-old pregnant woman working scientifically as a biologist conducts unusual experiments in her home laboratory. The plants she grows feel physical pain and fear. One day a falling tree kills a man. The incident repeats itself and people begin to say that trees want to kill. The heroine's husband, driven by resentful ambition, directs all his envy at the object of his wife's research. He prompts the city authorities to cut down all the "decayed trees" in the area in order to guard against future mishaps. The execution triggers a reaction from the forces of nature....
A documentary charting the rigors of the Russian space program, where the symbol of national pride would justify the most demanding training conditions.
