In the spring of 2014, on the banks of the Tigris in Turkey, a gath­er­ing of most­ly elder­ly Yazidis con­venes for the bap­tism of a nine-year-old girl named Nar­in. Dressed in white, Nar­in pos­sess­es del­i­cate fea­tures accen­tu­at­ed by bright sage-green eyes. As she under­goes the sacred cer­e­mo­ny, she is blessed by a sheikh, who invokes a path of good­ness and strength for her. The cer­e­mo­ny con­nects deeply with Nar­in’s grand­moth­er, who express­es her affec­tion with vivid anatom­i­cal metaphors—referring to Nar­in as “the cor­ner of my liv­er,” and “the light of my eye.” This flu­id­i­ty in their expres­sions of love empha­sizes the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of their beings.

Despite the joy­ous occa­sion, Nar­in is trou­bled by her father’s absence; he is a pop­u­lar qanun play­er often away for work. Their fam­i­ly his­to­ry is marked by grief and loss, with Nar­in raised pre­dom­i­nant­ly by her grand­moth­er fol­low­ing her mother’s death short­ly after Nar­in’s birth. As the sheikh pre­pares to con­clude the bap­tism, their moment of tran­quil­i­ty is shat­tered by the arrival of a bull­doz­er, a fore­bod­ing sign of impend­ing dis­rup­tion due to a major dam project by the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment. This project will dis­place thou­sands and oblit­er­ate the ancient set­tle­ment of Hasankeyf, drown­ing its rich his­to­ry under arti­fi­cial lakes.

Despite protests from local farm­ers and activists, the dam con­struc­tion con­tin­ues. The bull­doz­er dri­ver inter­rupts the cer­e­mo­ny with hos­til­i­ty, empha­siz­ing the urgency of their relo­ca­tion. Grand­ma, rep­re­sent­ing the sto­ic strength of her peo­ple, con­fronts the dri­ver. As the bull­doz­er tears through the land, sym­bol­ic of the despair faced by the Yazi­di com­mu­ni­ty, the group is forced to move fur­ther up the riv­er, seek­ing a qui­eter loca­tion for the cer­e­mo­ny.

With chal­lenges mount­ing, Grand­ma express­es a desire to take Nar­in to Iraq for a prop­er bap­tism, as they have nev­er achieved the jour­ney to the Val­ley of Lal­ish, the holi­est site for Yazidis. Mean­while, Nar­in grap­ples with her hear­ing loss, a result of a rare genet­ic ill­ness. Grand­ma reas­sures her that love endures beyond loss, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of mem­o­ry and iden­ti­ty with­in their cul­tur­al nar­ra­tive. Amidst ris­ing ten­sions and the poignant weight of their shared his­to­ry, Nar­in’s bap­tism embod­ies both a per­son­al and com­mu­nal hope against the back­drop of an uncer­tain future. The bap­tism remains incom­plete, yet its sig­nif­i­cance in acknowl­edg­ing both con­nec­tion and loss rever­ber­ates through the pain of their real­i­ty.