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.

私自砍伐树木是被法律明令禁止的，但生活在这个小镇的人们除此以外无以为生，爸爸因生活所迫不得不去砍伐树木来养活全家。尽管他十分小心，但是有一次砍树时，还是被正在林间巡视的警察抓住，并被关进了监狱。全家顿时陷入了混乱：家里唯一的经济来源没有了，砍伐树木的锯子被没收，锯子的主人又上门来要债。无巧不成书，押送爸爸入狱的警察恰好是女儿的未婚夫，在母亲的责骂和百般阻拦下，女儿的婚事只有被迫搁置。
家中所遭遇的不幸，小儿子加拉都看在眼里。为了给家里减轻负担，他决定利用下课时间为伐木的村民跑腿送锯子。一个还在上小学的男孩在山间的雪地里奔跑，为的只是能吃上一口饱饭而已。
一天，警察再次到林间巡视，正好被加拉看见，他飞奔去通风报信，却不小心把写有名字的课本丢在了路上，加拉也面临着将被关进监狱的危险，生活的窘迫正在慢慢吞噬着这个普通的家庭……

On a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Turkish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. The revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.

The story revolves around a blind boy named Mohammed who is released from his special school in Tehran for summer vacation. His father, shamed and burdened by Mohammed's blindness, arrives late to pick him up and then tries to convince the headmaster to keep Mohammed over the summer. The headmaster refuses, so Mohammed's father eventually takes him home.