Seventeen-year-old hearing-impaired Olga, along with her father Roman, stepmother Maryna and younger brother Sashko, is about to embark on a dangerous journey to the west of the country to escape the advancing Russian forces. However, their house is suddenly occupied by enemy soldiers.

In one continuous shot, SHTTL shows the lives, loves, and inner conflicts within a Yiddish speaking shtetl on the border between Ukraine and Poland - one day before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.