Anya, a young academic raised in an orphanage, is on the cusp of success when she’s accused of drug possession. While in limbo hiding from the police, she hits the road with Kristina, another orphan several years Anya’s junior, in search of her possibly mythical grandmother.

Story of a rough little boy in Kazakh society in the last years of the USSR, owes something to the Italian neo realist movement of the 1940s.

Three brothers were waiting for their father Olmes to return from the war, imagining him as a hero, like the former circus performer Anuar, who had actually fallen from grace and started stealing. When Olmes returned, the children were disappointed by his appearance, but during the kokpar game, he defeated Anuar, who was trying to cheat.