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
