Mirko Božić

In the center of the story is an old bachelor, honest man who is unable to prove his honesty because his only proof, a statuette, has been broken. The film is set in the earliest days of socialism after the WW2.

The plot of the drama begins with the murder of an officer of the occupying forces. The town’s commander issues a strange order: let the locals choose a victim for revenge. This is how the righteous judge Blaz gets to the center of the action.

Smilja is a little girl living in Dalmatian Zagora. One day, her mother dies under a small oak tree and she is left without parents. Luckily, she gets adopted and continues to nurture the oak where her mother died. Many years later, Smilja is a handsome woman, but her jealous stepbrother Josip kills her boyfriend Ivan and rapes her. Ivan's brothers swear revenge.