Based on the novel of the same name by Daniil Granin. Engineer Chizhegov often travels on business to a small town, where he meets a woman who reciprocates his feelings. The protagonist faces a difficult problem: he is married, and his family lives in Leningrad. Unable to make a final decision and afraid of losing his beloved, he commits a despicable act. His remorse comes too late—Chizhegov loses the woman who was truly dear to him forever.

A young couple on the river bank leaf through Lesya Ukrainka's book "Forest Song". Reading takes the young people to Polesia, where the drama takes place.

The script about loneliness, conformity and the impossibility of creative realization scared the editorial censorship at the studio, and then at Derzhkino. A lot of claims were made against him. The demands for amendments and endless additions and rewrites by the authors lasted for about a year. The original version of the title "Na pokhony!" ("To bow down!") was replaced by "To Dream and to Live". According to Pylyp Ilyenko, the director's eldest son, this name appeared "as a result of censor pressure." Censorship stopped the tape 40 times: at the stage of the literary script, director's, during film tests (the actors were not approved), filming, etc. The film catastrophically fell apart into fragments, into masterfully filmed, but unrelated scenes. The director called the finished version a "dead film".

Successful film director Dmitry Pavlovich must fly by plane to Moscow and then to Rome. But the phone rings in his house and he is told that his old mother, who lives in Melovatka, his native village, has fallen ill. Dmitry Pavlovich hires a taxi and begins his “autumn journey to his mother.”

The investigation of a complex, complicated case of the murder of an engineer, a former prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp. The criminal, one of the executioners of this camp, did not escape retribution.

Andrey Yarchuk, the foreman of the collective farm construction team, leaves for the city after Marinka, who was sent by the collective farm to study at an agricultural institute. After learning that the villagers are mocking Andrei, Marinka is transferred to the correspondence department and returns to the village. However, pride does not allow Andrey to return. Lovers will have to go through many adventures before they meet in their native Kohanovka.

The plant director gathers all the young people in one shop, entrusting them with both work and management. The experiment is unsuccessful, as the youth workshop did not become a collective. Young engineer Sergey, who heads the shop, realizes that only by uniting the youth, he will be able to work fruitfully and fight against marriage and indiscipline. Tsybulkin, who was chosen as a Komsorog, helps to realize the plan conceived by Sergey,. Two schools come to internship. One of them - Lisa Gromova, the daughter of the director of the plant. The shop staff and Sergei undertake to re-educate the maiden spoiled by her mother. Director Gromov himself helps them.

A seriously ill patient is brought to the clinic of a research institute. Young doctor Falko, a resident at the institute, insists on an urgent operation, but his supervisor Druz believes that in this case therapeutic treatment will be more effective and, moreover, will not be associated with risk. Professor Shostenko nevertheless undertakes to operate on the patient. The successfully completed operation confirms the diagnosis made by Falko. Parallel to the events in the clinic, the action unfolds in the house of the director of the institute Shostenko, where his son Igor returns after a three-year absence. The complicated relationship between Igor and his wife, the love story of Shostenko's daughter and Druz - the canvas of the second plot of the film.

The plot begins in the Soviet Union showing first efforts to establish the Czechoslovak legion in 1942. The film also shows the assassination of Heydrich and the subsequent annihilation of Lidice. The main topis of the film is battles with German troops for Sokolovo.