Joanna Duchnowska

An American actress temporarily stops in Warsaw on her way to Japan, where she gets acquainted with the Polish writer.

A famous opera singer comes to his hometown in Poland, where he loses his voice.

A doctor plunged into a marital crisis receives an attractive job offer.

The four sequences in the film cover four days in a life of young Warsaw lad in September 1938, 1939, 1943 and 1944. In the first sequence Jurek decides not to study in the Sorbonne but enlists in a Polish military school instead. In the second sequence the war starts and Warsaw is occupied. In the third sequence he works in the underground resistance. The final sequence takes place during the Warsaw uprising.

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.

On August 1, 1944, Warsaw holds its breath as Home Army couriers spread word that “W-hour” is at 17:00. A platoon under “Czarny” must assault German barracks without the expected backup—an order they follow at the risk of collective suicide.