Facts is a dramatization of a massacre in a Lithuanian village during World War II when Nazis rounded up over 100 men, women, and children accused of partisan activity and then torched the houses in which they were held. Using Russian interrogations of a few survivors, the testimony of villagers, and some of the Germans responsible for the killing, the film gradually reconstructs the event and its context.
The film is set in Lithuania after the Second World War. It shows dramatic events in a small Lithuanian farming community, where people are split between the Soviets and the "brothers in the woods", who are fighting to defend their land from the Soviets after the end of the Second World War.