The film tells the story of an 80-year-old woman, Mantoa (Mary Twala Mlongo), who discovers on Christmas Day that her son has died in a mining accident in South Africa. With no family left alive, she starts making arrangements for her own burial—only to be told by the city council that her landlocked village, Nasaretha, is about to be flooded for the construction of a dam and that its residents will be resettled in the city. But Mantoa is resolute in her desire to be buried alongside her ancestors.