Iraqi Independent Film Central

Hayat, a 12-year-old strong-willed girl, lives in a poor fishing village governed by dark tradition, in which every family must give away a daughter to the sea creatures who inhabit the waters near by. In turn, the sea creatures are hunted by the men of the village. Saved from this ordeal by her father, Hayat is outcasted by her village and considered a curse. But Hayat never surrenders. When Hayat’s mother gives birth to her new-born brother, Hayat must accept the brutal custom by sacrificing herself to these creatures or find a way to escape.

Iraqi theater director Mohsen Sadoon Yasin has spent much of his life in involuntary exile. His daughter, Ishtar Yasin Gutiérrez, has constructed a loving film portrait of her father, and an elegy for a homeland to which they can never return—partly because it has changed so much, and partly because it was perhaps always more a concept than a reality.