Ahmet Nurudin is a dervish and head of the Islamic monastery of the Mevlevi order in Sarajevo. He is a personification of morale and dogmatic belief, everything that Muslim religion of the Ottoman rule rests on. Throughout his life, the atmosphere of the city, the relations with the judge and the mechanism of government, the image of Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the nineteenth century is being revealed. Based on a highly praised novel by Meša Selimović.

The film tells the story of the Yugoslav destroyer Zagreb which fights against Germany in 1941, and how some of the crew members try to organise a mutiny to keep fighting when the commander is ordered to surrender.

After the war, a partisan hospital is set up in a monastery, with the nuns working as nurses. A beautiful young nun, Maria, becomes very fond of the partisan leader, Commissar Nenad.

An exciting story of Husine coalminers who formed a partisan batch and put up an armed resistance during WW2 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.