Set in 1952, film tells the story of young musicians playing - then forbidden - jazz music in basements and attics around Poland. The group hires itself to social parties, youth dances, etc, each time waiting for the management to disappear in order to shift gears to hot music. The crowd either loves it or does not know what to do. Occasionally they are harassed by the police.

The hardships of an ordinary street vendor from his troubled childhood, when he had to work to support his family, to disappointing adulthood, when he lost all the money he had several Times for various reasons.

Karol sits for hours in a wardrobe in a rented room on the attic, looking back on his whole life. He was brought up by a single mother who loved his only child with a sick desperate feeling and limited all his world to her own person. Karol's tragedy began with his adolescence. It made his mother aware of her feminity that resulted in her new marriage. Together with a new husband she decided to send the boy to a school for retarded children. Upon leaving the school Karol starts to seek his longing mother who moved out, in a meanwhile, not giving any address.

Set in 1944. A shepherd boy enters an abandoned palace he has seen only from the distance since he was a boy. Once he enters the palace, strange things begin to happen as though he was dreaming the events rather than living them.

Adaś Miauczyński, a Polish intellectual, has severe alcohol problems which affect his relationship with his son Sylwek.

Panoramic view of a resort town in the summer of 1930. In seventeen episodes we get a glimpse at the microcosm of its colourful inhabitants and visitors, Poles and Jews, the high society and the desperately poor.