In a newly built town rising in the Donbas steppe, Hryhorii Hryva, a miner with a difficult temperament, falls in love with Liuda, an idealistic young activist who does not return his feelings. Running parallel to their story is that of another couple whose relationship is put to the test by a local religious sect.

Originally titled “No One Ever Loved Like This” (another alternative screenplay title was “Dawn in the Steppe”), the film was originally directed by Anatolii Slisarenko, with the rising Ukrainian film star Inna Burduchenko cast in the leading role. After Burduchenko tragically died during production, Slisarenko was removed from the project. The film was entrusted to Sergei Paradjanov, who developed a new screenplay, “Faith. Hope. Love”. Retaining only around twenty percent of the footage shot by his predecessor, Parajanov shifted the story’s focus and effectively rescued the production. The completed film, released under the title “Flower on the Stone”, credited only Paradjanov as its director.

During the years of Perestroika, the film was often described as the director’s «lowest point.» Over time, however, critical attitudes toward Paradjanov’s perceived failure have shifted. In her essay “The Cinematic Donbas of the Khrushchev Thaw: Parajanov’s “Black” Film, or Milk for the Hero” (“Donbas Film Revision” Anthology), film scholar and cultural theorist Olha Briukhovetska argues that the film is far more complex than it first appears:

“…it was dismissed as ‘drab,’ ‘senseless,’ and ‘unconvincing,’ before sinking into oblivion as just another crude propaganda film produced during Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign. Yet this ‘non-masterpiece’ by Paradjanov is fascinating not only as a stage in the director’s artistic evolution (it was made immediately before his first masterpiece, “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” (1964)), but also as a historical artifact of its era and its internal contradictions—in other words, as the intersection of these two trajectories: the author’s and history’s.”

The film was scanned by the Dovzhenko Centre Film Laboratory in 2023.