shows the difficulty of life in Czechoslovakia during the 1980s. Artist Baedrich Mara (Bolek Polivka) is unable to find much secure work due to his public antagonism toward the ruling Communist Party. He has a wife and two children. Life begins to change when art historian Alois Fabera (Jiri Pecha) begins working on a piece about Baedrich, leading to a job offer from a Party official. Things are looking up, until the wrong people hear portions of the historian's writing