A young man wants to marry the beautiful daughter of a landowner who refuses to allow the marriage. To prove his worth, the young man becomes a miller in a vampire-infested local mill.

Story follows young man Strahinja who is in love with a local beauty Radojka, but their relationship has an obstacle - her father Zivan, who considers Strahinja as nothing but a loser. To prove that he's able to take care of himself and his future bride, Strahinja agrees to take vacancy in village mill... But, mill is known as a place where no one meets the dawn alive...—Nino

Leptirica (The She-Butterfly, 1973) is based on a revered classic of Serbian nineteenth-century literature, the short story 'After Ninety Years' by Milovan Glisic. Its hero is Strahinya, a poor lad in rural Serbia who falls in love with the local landowner's daughter: in order to prove himself worthy of her love, he has to spend a night in an accursed mill. It is said that a vampire is sucking the blood of unfortunate mill men, thereby bringing the village to the verge of famine. Strahinya manages to survive the night (more through clumsiness than courage), but the vampire escapes. Luckily, the lad learns the vampire's name and, following a prolonged search, the creature's grave is found. A group of villagers seemingly dispatch him with a stake through the unopened coffin, but the young man has yet to meet the real horror - on his wedding night...—Dejan Ognjanovic