Chum-Chum, a nine-year-old dreamy street kid with diabetes, and his best friend, Moody, a tough thirteen-year-old, eke out a living by stealing and scheming to survive the harsh streets of Baghdad. Maryam is a fierce and closed-off woman who drives an old, worn-out double-decker bus to pick up street kids and educate them in her bus that she turned into a school. Maryam shows Chum-chum, an animation film about the legendary Gilgamesh and how he goes to the underworld ‘Arkala’.

One day, Chum-Chum sees Gilgamesh taking bodies out of the river. Touched by these images, he overcomes his fear and tries to forge a friendship with the man so that he takes him into the depths of the Tigris River and into Arkala. Moody has only one dream—to save enough money to leave Iraq for good for the Netherlands, together with Chum-Chum and his sister Sara (15), whom he secretly loves, but he makes her work at a nightclub to help him secure money for a smuggler. Chum discovers Moody’s relationship with the Sheikh (60), a ruthless and bleak militia and Moody’s links to the killing of Maryam’s Family. Moody agrees to commit a final act of terror for the Sheik—by bombing the protesters in Tahrir Square. Can Chum-chum’s dream become a reality and save Moody?