Three teenage friends stuck in a frozen, hopeless place come up with a plan to escape over the mountain to a world where their dreams can be fulfilled. But when one of them falls in love, their plan begins to unravel.

A mother reports her student daughter Lisa missing, but detective Aslak Eira is getting too little information, and she is found in a lake. The more they investigate, the less they seem to understand. Then Lisa's best friend goes missing too.

During summer 1979, Ester moves to Alta in Northern Norway to begin teaching at an elementary school. Like many Sámi at the time, she is ashamed of her heritage and conceals her ethnicity. Ester goes to great lengths to fit in, even joining in with the derogatory jokes. When her cousin Mikkhal takes her to a camp by the Alta River, where people are demonstrating against the building of a dam, Ester learns how the fight for the river is also a revolt against the years of brutal racism and discrimination against her people. After a major confrontation with the police, Mikkhal and some other Sámi decide to go to Oslo to hunger strike in front of the Parliament. Knowing what is at stake, Ester realises it is time to make a stand…