Fate of a Man (, translit. Sudba Cheloveka), also released as A Man's Destiny and Destiny of a Man is a 1959 Soviet film adaptation of the short story by Mikhail Sholokhov, and also the directorial debut of Sergei Bondarchuk. In the year of its release it won the Grand Prize at the 1st Moscow International Film Festival.
Plot
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, driver Andrei Sokolov has to part with his family. In May 1942 he is taken prisoner by the Germans. Sokolov endures the hell of a Nazi concentration camp, but thanks to his courage he avoids execution and finally escapes from captivity behind the front line to his own. On a short front-line vacation to his small homeland Voronezh, he learns that his wife and both daughters have died during the bombing of Voronezh by German aircraft. Of those close to him, only his son remained, who became an officer. On the last day of the war, May 9, Andrei receives news that his son has died.
After the war, the lonely Sokolov works as a truck driver away from his native places - in Uryupinsk (Stalingrad Oblast). There he meets a little boy Vanya, who was left an orphan: the boy's mother died during the bombing, and his father went missing during the war. Sokolov decides to tell the boy that he is his father, and by doing so he gives himself and the boy hope for a new happy family life.
Cast
Sergei Bondarchuk as Andrei Sokolov
Pavel Boriskin as Vanya
Zinaida Kiriyenko as Irina, Sokolov's wife
Pavel Volkov as Ivan Timofeyevich, Sokolov's neighbor
Yuri Averin as Müller
Kirill Alekseyev as German Major
Pavel Vinnik as Soviet Colonel
Lev Borisov as platoon
Georgy Millyar as drunk German soldier
Yevgeny Morgunov as fat German soldier (uncredited)