Pět let

It is the spring of 1948. The joy of peace has not yet faded, and both East and West are already afraid of World War III. Both worlds are separated from each other by the deep forests of Šumava. Twenty-four-year-old cook Josef Hasil serves in the kitchen of the National Security Corps in Zvonková. Wild boy. He had already experienced the war in a German labor camp and as a link between partisans. Now he longs above all for fun, adventure, freedom. The last thing he cares about is politics.

A twelve-year-old Michal was born with a cleft lip. He feels inadequate because of his deformed face. His only friend Ondra convinces him to join a street gang to finally break free from a position of an outsider. Two friends have one afternoon to show they have what it takes to pass the admission to the gang. Michal desperately wants to prove he is good enough, but the tempting adventure suddenly turns into an initiation ritual into adulthood.

During a random check the commander of a Czech Customs Unit discovers a group of immigrants in a van’s cargo area. The chaotic incident is taken advantage of by an underage boy who flees into the surrounding forests. The order is to keep the group in makeshift space and to find the boy. But the boy’s father refuses to co-operate with the search and the unit’s members start being aggressive towards the detained men. The commander tries to deal with the ensuing situation according to the rules but slowly he becomes undecided whether to follow orders or his own conscience. A night which shakes his faith in the system he represents.