The clash of two styles of approaches to people, science, and business is the main conflict of the film. Both central characters - the head of the Altai complex space station and the experiment leader Andrei - are people devoted to science. But Altai is an emotional person, he manages to take care of people, forgive them their small shortcomings and mistakes. Andrey is dry, sometimes even rude to his employees. His absorption in work sometimes borders on selfishness. This gives rise to a clash with Touma, a gifted physicist, but a man of a different plane.

The film takes place in Baku in 1918-19 and then several years later. The film is based on the opera of the same name by Fikret Amirov. Sevil became the first film opera in the history of Azerbaijani cinema.