The plot of the movie is centered in the city of Karlovac in 1992, during the Croatian War of Independence. The front lines, where Croatian and Serbian forces fight each other, lie near the city. Meanwhile, in the city of Karlovac, a Serbian civilian Vasić is murdered. The story follows the local police officer Barbir (Dražen Kühn), who tries to solve the murder in spite of ethnic hatred and war revolving nearby.

The film's screenplay is based on Jurica Pavičić's 1997 novel The Alabaster Sheep (Ovce od gipsa), which was in turn inspired by a real-life case of murder of the Zec family in Zagreb in 1991.