During the famine genocide of the 1930s in the Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic, gravedigger Isatai picks up bodies and takes them to a mass grave. The head of the village hopes to get some provisions from Sarkand and sends Isatai to deliver a message. Trying to protect his younger brother, Isatai takes him on the road. The endless steppe turns into a circular nightmare, where two forces – space and hunger – start to control Isatai’s mind. In what becomes a physical journey and a mental adventure, Isatai suffers from hallucinations, meets folklore characters and faces a difficult choice that might determine the destiny of the entire village.