1942. A young Russian nurse unexpectedly goes into labour and, all alone and in freezing temperatures, gives birth to her daughter Tamara in a field on the banks of the Volga. Decades later, the director searches for her unknown father who, as a russian officer, made the young nurse pregnant. The task is complicated by the fact that her mother has never come to terms with her wartime trauma and worn family photos only seem to show happy-go-lucky life before the war.