Zain El Hajj, a 12-year-old from the slums of
Beirut, is serving a five-year prison sentence in
Roumieh Prison for stabbing someone whom he refers to as a "son of a bitch". Neither Zain nor his parents know his exact date of birth as they never applied/received an official birth certificate. Zain is brought before a
court, having decided to take
civil action against his parents, his mother, Souad, and his father, Selim. When asked by the judge why he wants to sue his parents, Zain answers "Because I was born" (or, more precisely, "because you had me"). Meanwhile, Lebanese authorities process a group of
migrant workers, including a young Ethiopian woman named Rahil. The story then flashes back several months to before Zain was arrested. Zain lives with his parents and takes care of at least seven younger siblings who make money in various schemes instead of going to school. He uses forged
prescriptions to purchase
tramadol pills from multiple pharmacies, which they crush into powder, dissolve in water then soak some clothes, hang these to dry and finally, their mother sells the garments to drug addicts in prison. Zain also works as a delivery boy for Assad, the family's landlord and owner of a local market stall. One morning, Zain helps his 11-year-old sister Sahar to hide the evidence of her first
period, fearing she will be married to Assad if her parents discover that she can now become pregnant. ,
Ras Beirut, where Zain meets Rahil Zain makes plans to escape with Sahar and begin a new life. However, his suspicions are proven correct as her parents marry off Sahar to Assad in exchange for two chickens. Furious at his parents, Zain runs away and catches a bus, where he meets an elderly man dressed in a
knock-off Spider-Man costume who calls himself "Cockroach Man". Cockroach Man gets off the bus at the
Luna Park in
Ras Beirut and Zain follows him, spending the rest of the day at the park. While on the
Ferris wheel, Zain sees a beautiful sunset and begins to cry. Later, Zain meets Rahil, an Ethiopian migrant worker who is working as a cleaner at the park. She takes pity on Zain and agrees to let him live with her at her tin shack in exchange for Zain babysitting her undocumented infant son Yonas when she is at work. Rahil's forged migrant documents are due to expire soon, and she does not have enough money to pay her forger Aspro for new documents. Aspro offers to forge the documents for free if she gives Yonas to him so that Yonas can be adopted. Rahil refuses, despite Aspro's claims that Yonas' undocumented status will mean he can never receive an education or be employed. Rahil's documents expire and she is arrested by Lebanese authorities. After she does not return to the shack, Zain panics. Several days pass, and Zain begins looking after Yonas on his own, claiming that they are brothers, and begins selling tramadol again to earn money. One day, while at Souk Al Ahad, where Aspro is based, Zain meets a young girl named Maysoun. Maysoun is a
Syrian refugee and claims that Aspro has agreed to send her to
Sweden. Zain demands that Aspro send him to Sweden as well, which Aspro agrees to do if Zain gives him Yonas. After the landlord has locked him out of Rahil's house where all his money and things are, Zain reluctantly agrees and leaves Yonas with him. Aspro tells him that he will need some form of identification to become a refugee. Zain returns to his parents and demands they give him his identification, to which they laughingly tell him he does not have any. Having disowned him for leaving, they kick him out of their house, but not before revealing that Sahar had recently died due to difficulties with her pregnancy. Furious, Zain takes a large knife, runs out the house and stabs Assad. Zain is arrested and sentenced to five years at Roumieh Prison. While in prison, during a visit from his mother, Zain learns that Souad is pregnant yet again and plans to name the child Sahar. Disgusted by his mother's lack of remorse for his sister's death, he tells her not to visit again, calling her "heartless". During a TV show requesting call-in commentary on child abuse, Zain contacts the media and says that he is tired of parents neglecting their children and plans to sue his own parents for continuing to have children when they cannot take care of them. When the judge asks him what he wants from his parents, he says "I want them to stop having children", as he does not want the rest of his surviving siblings or any other children that his parents may have in the future to suffer the same neglect and abuse that he and Sahar both endured. Zain also alleges that Aspro is adopting children illegally and mistreating them; the court then rules in Zain's favor, with Zain winning the case and gaining justice for Sahar's death. Aspro's house is raided and the children and parents are reunited, including Yonas and Rahil. Zain's photo is taken for his ID card. The photographer cracks a joke at Zain's sour disposition—"It's your ID card, not your death certificate"—and Zain manages a smile. ==Cast==