Vladimír Michálek chose an unconventional adaptation of Franz Kafka's novel for his feature debut. Artistically reminiscent of the classic films of Karel Zeman, the director reinterpreted this dark story of a man vainly seeking a place in a rigidly ordered society by changing the desperate conclusion into a happy end. The film provided Czech comedian Jirí Lábus with a new kind of role: that of the despotic uncle of a main hero Karel Rossman (Martin Dejdar).

Told from the perspective of man reflecting on his childhood in Prague in the early years of World War II and the eventual destruction of his family as the Nazis rise to power. The storyline focuses heavily on Jewish-Czech Silberstein family members. Drama was filmed on the real events as a tribute to Mr. Nicholas Winton, the British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport from German-occupied Czechoslovakia and likely death in the Holocaust.