The adaptation of Hans Cristian Andersen's tale filmed on a white background. It is also the first Croatian movie in color.

A young man's fight between love and the monastic discipline.

Smilja is a little girl living in Dalmatian Zagora. One day, her mother dies under a small oak tree and she is left without parents. Luckily, she gets adopted and continues to nurture the oak where her mother died. Many years later, Smilja is a handsome woman, but her jealous stepbrother Josip kills her boyfriend Ivan and rapes her. Ivan's brothers swear revenge.