Aleksei Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevicius, Vladas Bagdonas, Jüri Lumiste, Viktors Lorencs, Kazimir Rabetsky, Yevgeni Tilicheyev, G. Velts, V. Vasilyev, Aleksandr Berda, Vasiliy Domrachyov, Nina Evdokimova, Igor Gnevashev, Valery Kravchenko
The invasion of a village in Byelorussia by German forces sends young Florya into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha, who accompanies him back to his village. On returning home, Florya finds his family and fellow peasants massacred. His continued survival amidst the brutal debris of war becomes increasingly nightmarish, a battle between despair and hope.
This has got to be the perfect antidote to the Hollywood treatment of a war film. It's bleak, grim and repulsive - and all in a great, intentional, cinematographic fashion. The thread centres around the young "Flyora" (a superb effort from Aleksey Kravchenko) who is taken from his Belorussian family farm at gunpoint (along with anything it's possible to eat) by the invading Nazi troops. What now e...