Plot: Belarus, 1943. More than anything, young Flyora, the only son of an impoverished peasant family, wants to take up arms and do his part in defending the homeland from the invading Nazis. However, there's nothing romantic about World War II. Indeed, by the time the inexperienced teenager joined a local unit of battle-tested partisans, the all-out German invasion of Belarus had already begun. Now, unspeakable horrors lie hidden in the fog of war, crushing Flyora's juvenile oblivion. And as the unsettling, irrefutable evidence of war disfigures Flyora's once-rosy, youthful face, the urgent plea for peace becomes timeless
Alternative Plot: The invasion of a village in Byelorussia by German forces sends young Florya (Aleksey Kravchenko) into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha (Olga Mironova), 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.
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