The film is set in the
Kurdish refugee camp on the
Iraq–Turkey border on the eve of the
US invasion of Iraq. 13 year-old Soran, known by the
alias Kak Satellite, is known for his installation of dishes and antenna for the villages who are looking for news about
Saddam Hussein. He is also known for his limited knowledge of the
English language, which he learns because he interacts with the Americans when they invade. He is the dynamic but
manipulative leader of a group of children, organizing the dangerous but necessary tasks of sweeping and clearing of the
minefields. Many of these children are injured one way or the other, but still maintain a boisterous prattle whenever possible, devoted to their work in spite of the vagaries of their life. The industrious Kak Satellite arranges trade-ins for undetonated mines. He falls for a girl named Agrin, an orphan from
Halabja who has recently came to the refugee camps, assisting her whenever possible in order to win her over. She is a perpetual sour-faced girl who is part bitter and part lost in thought, unable to escape the demons of the past. She is traveling with her disabled but very caring brother Hengov, who has the gift of
clairvoyance that gives him a bad reputation. The siblings stay with a blind toddler named Riga, who they introduce as their "little brother". It is later revealed that Agrin gave birth to Riga after she was
gang raped by
Ba'ath soldiers, while Hengov's arms had been shot as the soldiers attempted to drown both of them. Agrin is unable to accept Riga as anything besides a taint, a continuous reminder of her brutal past. Agrin tries to abandon the child and commit suicide on multiple occasions. Once she tries to drown herself in the lake, but she gives up. Trying to get rid of the child, she ties him on a tree and abandons him. He walks around until he gets stuck in a minefield. Kak Satellite tries to rescue him but a mine blows on Kak Satellite, injuring his leg. After multiple tries, Agrin finally ties Riga to a rock and throws him to the bottom of the lake, afterwards committing suicide herself by jumping from a cliff. When her brother sees a vision of his loved ones drowning, he hurries out of the tent to save them, but he is too late. Hengov eventually finds his nephew's body at the bottom of the lake but can't cut it loose from the rock due to his disability. Hengov grieves on the cliff from where Agrin jumped to her death. Meanwhile, a disabled Kak Satellite loses any charm he had about the American intervention and looks away when the American soldiers finally pass by him. ==Cast==