Meryem, a fifteen-year-old girl, lives in a rural village on the shores of Lake Van in Eastern Turkey. Her simple life changes dramatically after her uncle, a sheikh in a dervish order, rapes her. She is considered an outcast for shaming her family. When she is locked in a shed and left alone for days, she comes to the painful realization that her family expects her to hang herself. When she refuses to do her duty, her cousin and childhood playmate Cemal is charged with carrying out the honour killing to take her to Istanbul as the village euphemism goes. By chance, their paths cross with Irfan, an older and sophisticated professor from Istanbul who has abandoned his elite existence. Together they embark on a journey that sets them free.