Maria joins a Pentecostal sect. A young worker, Ivan, who has fallen in love with the girl, tries to save her from the sect's influence, but he is hindered by the head of the sect, the cruel and insidious Laguta, who plays a fatal role in Maria's fate.

Young Nadezhda after graduating college starts working in the orphanage.

THE FIRST LAD is one of five films Paradjanov made during his early sojourn at Ukraine’s Kiev Studios under the influence of his mentor Alexander Dovzhenko. The director let his imagination run riot, paying lip service to social realism but delivering a bizarre musical story of love rivalry on a collective farm so lush and over-the-top that it borders on parody.