Jeļena Kazarinova

Tenth-grader Nikolai Olkhovnikov from the provincial town of Olkhovka wrote a heartfelt protest to the newspaper, accusing the "town fathers" of unjust actions. The boy became an outcast in town, but no matter how much his few friends and old teacher tried to warn him, he did not retract his words. And some time later, a letter arrived in the same newspaper with a report of Nikolai's death during a fight with rowdy boys who decided to teach the young truth-seeker a lesson.

During the Second World War, senior lieutenant Astra Lejiņa, a member of the Soviet Army’s propaganda unit, receives permission to serve in the same military unit as her fiancé. Travelling a long distance by vehicle and on foot, she makes her way to the front, becoming an eyewitness to a series of dramatic and harrowing events that reveal the human cost of war.

The director's story about his life in the Soviet Union before his departure to Israel in 1971. The movie interweaves chronicle-documentary footage and fragments of Mikhail Kalik's films.