Gholam Farouq Baraki

A rural Afghan family living at the base of a mountain, struggles to survive during the last year of the Taliban and the beginning of a new war that still rages. Living under harsh and oppressive conditions, the family finds comfort in one another and in trying to rebuild their mountainous home. The youngest daughter, Zolykha, is specially receptive, curious and clairvoyant. Zolykha can sense and see spirits of strange men from the past that roam the hills and mountains behind her home. As Zolykha and her older siblings, Amena and Zalmai struggle to find meaning in life's natural and man-made tragedies, they discover new convictions to carry on.

A mini-bus is on a journey across the mountains to Kabul. Each person on the bus has a reason to take this journey. An old man is traveling to give a turkey to his grandchild, as his last wish before dying. However, the main road is blocked by insurgents. They decide to use an alternative road, which is not very secure, and there is still the possibility of getting caught by insurgents.

Saddled by a senile grandfather and a neglectful father, Mina, an impulsive twelve-year-old Afghan street seller sees her future slipping away when she is forced to neglect her education and walk the streets of Kabul to support her fragmented family. In the seven days that follow her life, Mina’s quest to emancipate her father from the claws of a local drug dealer and her attempt to secretly attend school underlines the current struggle of a young generation of Afghans trying to shake off the echoes of oppression from the Taliban era that continues to haunt those who bore witness to it.