On the first day of World War I, a group of Jews flee from the Cossack army in Polish Galicia and finds itself trapped overnight in a border inn. Relationships develop, love affairs are threatened, the religious pray. The director combines his gifts for intimate psychological drama with his penchant for history to re-create a vivid picture of a recently vanished world. Full of warmth and vitality, Austeria radiates a sense of humor which seems, uniquely, to draw inspiration from disaster.

W pierwszym dniu wojny grupa zydow z polskiej Galicji ucieka z miasta i chroni sie na noc w granicznej gospodzie. Austeria wypelnia sie ludzmi, ich dramatami, modlitwami chasydow, spiewem psalmow i wspomnieniami starego, madrego karczmarza.