Each of the short stories is based on either one or several stories by a wonderful Russian writer. The heroes are ordinary people “of the people”, contemporaries of Shukshin, all of whose life’s ups and downs are inextricably linked with their country - the Soviet Union of the 60s-70s. The main thing that unites both the works themselves and the films made is a whole gallery of the brightest images and characters, a story about such different destinies and differently meaningful lives, a story in the center of which is invariably Man, with his love, quests, weaknesses and victories.

Shukshin's Stories

The film is set during World War II in a German-occupied European country. In a covered truck on a snow-covered road, the Germans are transporting a group of civilians. Thoughts of imminent death inevitably visit the passengers of the van. The Catholic priest accompanying the arrested, among whom there is a boy, prepares the companions to leave for another world. A complex psychological conflict arises between the priest and the boy. Circumstances develop in such a way that the boy manages to escape.

Friend of War

The fabulous story of the girl Hannah and the young man from the depths of the sea in the film is intertwined with the pictures of the life of a provincial German town during World War II that arise in the heroine's memory, about her first love.