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...
Nonna Mordyukova
Vadim Spiridonov
Andrey Nikolaev
Valentina Telichkina
Valeriy Nosik
Vladimir Gusev
Galina Mikeladze
Arkady Smirnov
Vera Kuznetsova
Nikolay Dupak
Ivan Ryzhov
Valentina Ushakova
Irina Korablyova
Nina Agapova
Vladimir Basov Ml.
Vera Burlakova
Mariya Vinogradova
Lidiya Dranovskaya
Vladimir Zamanskiy
Svetlana Zhgun
Antonina Maksimova
Vladimir Pitsek
Tamara Yarenko
Tatyana Tashkova
Tatyana Ignatova
Daniil Netrebin
Yuri Suchkov
Vera Blagovidova
Tamara Loginova
Tatyana Kuznetsova
Stanislav Korenev
Serhiy Pidhornyi
Larisa Kronberg