The two 11-year-old girls Anna and Sharbat meet and become friends after a while. They unite around a big and secret goal: Anna is to ride the black stallion Zafir in a riding school competition, and Sharbat is to help her rein in the temperamental creature.

Liv Ulmann's directorial debut also had her co-authoring the screenplay (with poet Peter Poulsen) as based on a Henri Nathansen's 1932 novel about an affluent late 19th century Jewish merchant family in Copenhagen. Ulmann focuses on strong-willed daughter Sofie's progress through life: a love affair with a gentile painter, an arranged marriage , childbirth and ever more fateful challenges.