
The action takes place during the Great Patriotic War. Peasant Matryona Bystrova loses her husband at the front, then her eldest son goes missing. Matryona decides to save the youngest son at all costs and shelters him from being drafted into the army in the attic of the house until the end of the war. But it turns out that saving her son, she condemns him to spiritual death, and herself to torment of conscience. A private story about the mother of a deserter grows to epic proportions...

as Matryona

as Stepan

as Mitya

as Nina

as Grishka the postman

as Misha

as Katya

as Kornakov

as Kornakova

as chairman

as priest

as Mariya

as Tanya

as Faina

as Petya

as villager

as old woman

as villager

as military сommissar

as villager

as villager

as truck driver

as villager

as Lida

as villager (uncredited)

as district inspector (uncredited)

as photographer (uncredited)

as old woman (uncredited)

as Stepan's traveling companion (uncredited)

as guest at Tanya's wedding (uncredited)

as secretary

as Semyonov

as сельская жительница
