After the war, this former Sudetenland region was filled with a wide variety of people of all backgrounds from all over Czechoslovakia. Today they are linked through unemployment, poverty and a lack of confidence in their own abilities. But their rough sense of humour helps them get the most out of life in spite of the lousy cards fate has dealt. An 18-year-old forest worker named Kája is, according to writer-director Bohdan Sláma, “an inconceivably pure spirit dwelling in some kind of impenetrable isolation from the world. He is completely defenceless and is at the mercy of the cruellest of embarrassments.” Kája pines for Božka, a salesgirl at the local grocery kiosk. She is ever more aware of the emptiness of her existence, the same which fills her mother’s life. She is also lonely – and not only with respect to her boyfriend Laďa, a local dreamboat who worships Michael Jackson. Then Kája’s older brother, Petr, comes from Prague for an unexpected visit, and hidden relationships and motives begin to surface. The fireman’s ball is coming soon, one of the few opportunities they have for a bit of a change....