I. S. returns after many years to his hometown, from which he escaped after WW II, fearing that, as a civil clerk of the NDH, could suffer prosecution from the new government. He has been falsely accused to be a member of Ustasha movement.

A story about life adversities of an old emigrant who returns from America to his native village.

The story begins in a small rural village in Ladimirevci, Eastern Croatia in 1943, where a land owner Sima is helping the Partisan Movement and the official Ustasha regime in order to save the life of his son Beneš, who is enlisted in the German army. Sima doesn't want to let his son fight for the wrong side any more, and doesn't want to give him to the Partisans either, so he hides him in his attic for the time being. The story is interwoven with episodes of Sima trying to muster a beautiful stallion - Sokol - who only answers to his son Beneš and clearly doesn't like his old man.