The feature film by Fatih Akin tells the tragic story of the Armenian blacksmith Nazaret Manoogian. He lives with his wife Rakel and his daughters in the provincial town of Mardin. After the outbreak of the First World War, the Ottoman soldiers stand at his door one night. He and his brother-in-law, Hrant, are severely separated from their families by the soldiers on the grounds that all men in the empire are to be sent to the front on the orders of the sultan. However, Nazareth is not sent to the front, but like all other Armenian men forced to forced labor. While serving as a forced laborer in the desert, he witnesses the boundless violence against Christian women and children. All Armenian men who are in the same camp with Nazareth will one day be taken to a remote place to execute them. Nazaret survives thanks to Mehmet, who was supposed to kill him. This is how an eternal journey through the Syrian desert begins. After Mehmet and Nazareth join a group of deserters, Nazareth learns that the Armenians from Mardin, including his family, have been sent to the Syrian desert.
When he reaches a refugee camp in Syria, he learns that his wife and children are dead. However, during his stay in Aleppo, he is told that his daughters are alive, whereupon he goes in search of both. The search for the two survivors begins in Lebanon, which then has to be continued in Cuba and the United States.