The film is based on real events, and the memories of the participants. The action takes place during the Great Patriotic War, in 1942, in a small southern town which is occupied by the Nazis.
The main character is the 13-year-old Vadka, who lives in the occupied town and is the son of an “enemy of the people” who was repressed in the 1930s. After his father was arrested, Vadka grew up on the street, in a romantic criminal atmosphere.
Now that the Germans have entered the town, he is the “danger zone”, as the swarthy son of a Greek woman and Russian man: the Nazis constantly take him for a Jew, and he could be killed at any moment.
Vadka feels wary about his father: he is ashamed that he was arrested, while the other fathers are fighting on the frontline. But Vadka doesn’t know that during this time, his father saved many lives in the war, and proved himself to be a hero.
The film contrasts the world of the occupied territory, where fear and a constant expectation of death reign, and the ideas that the people who live in the occupied territory have about the battlefield.
Source : 2010.ru.spbkinoforum.ru