Noted Iranian actress Susan Taslimi plays an impoverished single mother who agees to marry off her 13-year-old daughter to a middle-aged man in return for a mare, which will help her earn an income and provide for her younger children. Director Ali Zhekan paints a stark picture of poverty and patriarchy in rural Iran (the mother stores her rice in a container hidden in a tree; her brother, who brokered the wedding, mercilessly beats the recalcitrant child), but this 1986 film is distinguished mostly by Taslimi's increasingly fiery performance as the mother decides to defend her daughter's freedom.

Khosrow and Alireza have a simple single life in Tehran. Someday, the carriage of the one year-old Parisa, which was abandoned at the downhill of a park, happens to stop in front of their house after passing a few blocks. They suppose that she is a foundling so they decide to take care of her. Eventually, the child's mother, Mehri, finds her daughter in their home...