Directed by Leonid Osyka, it is based on Vasyl Stefanyk's short stories The Thief and The Stone Cross.
[1] In the 1890s,[2] Ivan, a Galician peasant in a desperate attempt to get his family out of poverty decides to leave his ancestral home and emigrate to Canada.
[3] Gradually, a conversation ensues between the audience, the owners are advised what punishment to apply, why they ask about the origin of the thief, where he came from and how he became a criminal.
Ivan is preparing to leave his homeland with his sons and wife, but he is afraid that he will be forgotten, will disappear from people's memory like that thief.
He thinks aloud that, in fact, the people of his homeland no longer need land, only money; the deepening chasm between the poor and the rich absorbs honesty and deprives one of confidence.