Bartek lives in a village in the Podhale region, where he runs a small farm and takes care of his lonely and possessive mother. One day he meets Dawid, a slightly older man who comes to visit his family after many years of absence. Affection quickly develops between the two, followed by desire that Bartek suppressed for years.
In the near future an indifferent activist announces that at midnight on New Year’s Eve he is going to commit suicide in protest against the renewed slavery system in Poland. His plan is put on hold the moment he finds an abandoned slave woman in the trash and decides to help set her free.
The film protagonist operates on the border of two worlds. During the day, he works at a well-known shop selling home furnishings, while after hours he is hired by a “cleaning company” to clean homes after the deaths of their residents.The title “A Story of Short Duration” is a reference to the diagnosis of contemporary capitalism provided by Kacper Pobłocki in his book. In the film, it acquires an additional meaning by contrasting the image of a life’s end with the beginning of one’s path related to the moving into a new flat.
