A film about the fate of Czech immigrants in West Germany. Pavel Navratil, a liberal philosophy professor, left for Western Europe after the events of 1968. But he is detained indefinitely at a German airport, where the professor takes a job as a loader to survive. Being in such cramped circumstances, the professor nevertheless finds the time and energy to support other emigrants who, like outcasts, lead a marginal existence somewhere between a cheap apartment and a big city street.