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...
Grigoriy Chukhray
Grigoriy Chukhray
Viktor Merezhko
Yuri Sokol
Mikhail Ziv
Nonna Mordyukova
Matryona
Vadim Spiridonov
Stepan
Andrey Nikolaev
Mitya
Valentina Telichkina
Nina
Valeriy Nosik
Grishka the postman
Vladimir Gusev
Misha
Galina Mikeladze
Katya
Arkady Smirnov
Kornakov
Vera Kuznetsova
Kornakova
Nikolay Dupak
chairman
Ivan Ryzhov
priest
Valentina Ushakova
Mariya
... and 22 more
Mosfilm