The film tells the story of the unlikely friendship of Sasha (Igor Fomchenko), a little boy, and Sergey (Vladimir Zamansky), the operator of a steamroller.

Sasha (Igor Fomchenko) is a boy who lives with his mother (Marina Adzhubei) and his sister in an old house in Moscow.

This day he is lucky as Sergey (Vladimir Zamansky), the operator of a steamroller, tells them to leave Sasha alone.

At the music school he plays beautifully, but his teacher, who is more interested in form and order, is stifling his creativity with a metronome.

[2] For the role of the operator of the steamroller, Sergey, Tarkovsky cast Vladimir Zamansky, an actor at the Sovremennik Theatre.

Although Tarkovsky was at this time only an unknown film student, he wanted to hire the well-known Sergey Urusevsky as cinematographer.

For his diploma film, Tarkovsky earned the grade of excellent (Russian: отличный), the highest possible distinction.