Homeward

Mustafa (Akhtem Seitablayev) and his college-aged son, Alim (Remzi Bilyalov) have set out to a morgue in Kiev to recover the body of Alim's older brother, Nazim, yet another casualty of the war with Russia. Although Nazim had been living in Kiev with his Orthodox wife, Oleysa, Mustafa is insistent that his son is given a traditional Muslim burial beside his mother's grave in Crimea, and excludes Oleysa from the road-trip. Mustafa is hot-tempered and severe. There is also tension between father and son as city-life has exacerbated the generational gap between Mustafa and Alim. However, one commonality unites them - their shared language of Crimean Tatar. Along the way, they face many obstacles, not least of which is a decomposing cadaver, and Alim is hard-pressed to accept his father's determination to uphold tradition at all costs. However, the on-going challenges encourage the pair to better understand each other, profoundly impacting their relationship.