This heartfelt follow-up to the Oscar winning The Artist tells the intersecting stories of four lives ripped apart by the second Chechen war of 1999. Bérénice Bejo portrays Carole, an NGO worker compiling a UN report on the worsening humanitarian crisis. She crosses paths with Hadji, a traumatized ten-year-old refugee and offers him shelter in her apartment. When the boy refuses to speak, she seeks help from wizened but exasperated Red Cross official Helen, played by Annette Bening, without realizing that Helen has been in touch with Raïssa, a young woman combing the embattled countryside in search of her younger brother. Meanwhile, Russian 20-year-old, Kolia, chooses military service to evade a minor drug offense, and is brutalized in a boot camp that’s little more than an assembly line for killing machines.
