This short film, a mini-biography of of writer and Nobelist Boris Pasternak, serves as something of a promotional film for the upcoming film version of his novel Doctor Zhivago (1965). It includes scenes with David Lean, Alec Guinness, and Geraldine Chaplin among others. Pasternak grew up in an artistic home where men like Lev Tolstoy were frequent visitors. He refused, however, to sing the praises of the Bolshevik revolution and was refused permission to publish it in his home country. It was eventually published in the West to great acclaim.