Marlena Miarczyńska

Danka was an unwanted child. From an early age she had to cope on her own. Despite harsh conditions and difficult experiences, she has not lost her dignity, has remained true to her ideals, and has a sense of integrity and honesty. When the opportunity to conditionally shorten her sentence in a correctional institution by getting married hits her, she rejects the tempting offer. She doesn't want to hurt the man she doesn't love, who has shown her a lot of heart. Danka's friend has taken advantage of her conditional release, without hiding what her motives are, by the way.

In Stalinist Poland, cabaret singer Tonia decides to spend the evening drinking with a group of friends. The next morning, she awakes to find that, for reasons unknown to her, she has been jailed as a political prisoner. As prison officials interrogate, torture and humiliate her, she fights for survival and to maintain her innocence by refusing to sign a false confession. As her years of imprisonment pass, her relationship with her captors grows more complicated.

A famous Polish journalist presents a problem for the powers-that-be when he displays his full political skill and knowledge on a television show featuring questions and answers on a world conference by a panel of journalists. His enemies take away his privileges when he is away. The shock of being "unwanted" parallels a deeper disappointment in his private life: his wife has an affair with a jealous young rival, and after 15 years of marriage and two daughters wants a divorce. She offers no explanations as he tries to untie these problems himself. All the moves he makes are the wrong ones. He takes on drinking heavily with students eager to attend his seminar after discovering the class has been canceled. The journalist, once suave and commanding, is reduced to silence.

A simple governess and a wealthy aristocrat fall madly in love with each other. However, his family are prejudiced towards her and have other plans for him.