Mohsen Makhmalbaf's extraordinary fable of love, suffering and self-sacrifice is the story of Nafas. A young Afghan refugee living in Canada, she receives a desperate letter from her younger sister, who writes that she will kill herself at the moment of the next solar eclipse. Nafas fled Afghanistan during the civil war with her father, a doctor. Her sister, terribly injured by a landmine, was too ill to travel with them, and remained behind, in Kandahar. With great difficulty, Nafas manages to reach Iran, where she seeks help. Heavily veiled, disguised as a peasant, she is led across war-ravaged, mine-strewn wastelands by a boy she encounters in a cemetery. To save her sister, whatever the cost, she must brave sickness, ruthless bandits and border guards if she is to reach the town of her birth before the eclipse…