In the summer of 1987, Qader Molanpour lives a hard-won, peaceful life in a Kurdish border village, sharing it with his pregnant wife, Maryam, and their three young children. The village’s quiet is shattered when an Iraqi fighter, returning from the chemical bombardment of Sardasht, drops one last bomb on the settlement, leaving the community wounded and scarred. [Qader] rushes to pull his family to safety, carrying his wife and children toward a hospital as the chaos of war closes in around them.
The scene shifts to a hospital that is overwhelmed and ill-prepared for the surge of wounded and expectant mothers. Maryam, eight months pregnant, cannot be moved quickly enough, while the couple’s three children are separated and sent to different cities in a desperate bid to save them from the fallout of the attack. [Qader] fights to shield them, clinging to the hope that each moment will bring relief, yet the consequences of exposure take a toll with devastating speed.
One by one, the children succumb to the severe injuries and the harsh realities of their environment. [Qader] keeps the losses secret from Maryam, wanting to spare her the pain even as the toll grows heavier. The burden of grief weighs on him as he tries to stay strong for his wife and unborn child, carving out a space of life in the midst of unbearable sorrow.
A baby is finally born, but tragedy continues to shadow the family. Maryam dies during the delivery, leaving [Qader] to face the newborn alone. In the wake of her death, [Qader] confronts the doctor, blaming him for not steering the pregnancy toward a safer outcome. The doctor reveals a painful truth: Maryam was fully aware of the dangers, yet chose to press on for the sake of life. She had already decided on a name for the child, Zhina, a cradle of meaning—“life”—to carry forward from the loss around her. This revelation deepens [Qader]’s grief and reframes his mission: to honor Maryam’s sacrifice by protecting the baby she named.
Yet the hospital’s disarray does not end with Maryam’s death. In the chaos, newborns are moved to other cities, and [Qader] discovers that his last child may not be safe in the turmoil of a system strained by war. The newborns’ transfers erase the fragile possibility of reuniting the family, and [Qader] faces the heartbreaking possibility that he may never hold his last child again.
As years pass, the war’s shadow stretches across continents. In The Hague, Netherlands, a court asks him to testify about the human costs and the weapons of mass destruction that shaped his world. In that formal setting, he speaks for the long-lost voices of his family, calling out to [Zhina] in his mind—a plea for connection across time and distance that remains unfulfilled. He continues to search for his daughter’s presence, hoping to hear a trace of her voice and feel her near, even as the distance between them widens.
Ultimately, [Qader]’s life comes to a quiet close in the snowy winter of 2016. He dies never having seen [Zhina] again, but his memory persists as a record of the choices, losses, and stubborn resilience that defined his family’s struggle. The film traces this lifelong search—one man’s attempt to reconcile past trauma with the promise of life—and it invites viewers to bear witness to the human costs of war, the endurance of love, and the elusive nature of closure in the face of irreplaceable absence.
