Two historical incidents that deepened the friendship between Japan and Turkey are connected in this story of friendship and compassion: In the night of 16 September 1890 the Turkish frigate Ertuğrul is caught up in a typhoon and sinks off the Japanese coast. Risking their own lives, local villagers are able to rescue 69 Turkish sailors. Although being very poor and having hardly to eat, the villagers share what little they have with strangers from a country 9,000 kilometers away. 95 years later, during the Iran-Iraq War, more than 300 Japanese are stranded in Tehran. In the morning of 19 March 1985 a Turkish Airlines aircraft takes off for Tehran to evacuate the Japanese. But the remaining Turks at Tehran Mehrabad Airport still need to be convinced that they won't be able to board their own country's rescue flight.

Umut, a strange, introverted, born young man, lives with his mother Leyla in a slum in Istanbul Esenler, and works as an apprentice in an auto repair shop. Realizing that her mother has been acting strangely recently, Umut begins to follow her secretly and learns that Leyla is with a man. The facts about the identity of this man will turn Umut's life upside down ... In the second part of the film, a completely different Umut goes after a completely different Leyla ...