In Pakistan’s tribal weapon-manufacturing village, a young Pashtun boy defies his father’s expectation that he will carry on the family’s gun-making business by demanding an education.

Eleven year old Niaz Afridi and his father Sher Alam live in the wild passes of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, in the Hindu Kush mountains bordering Afghanistan. Like many men in the village of Darra Adam Khel, Sher Alam has a workshop making weapons, ranging from small arms to the famous AK47 machine gun, and expects Niaz will naturally carry on this tradition.

Niaz has never been sent to school by his father. He is itching to step out from beneath his father’s shadow to be a gun-maker and begin to explore the world. He has dreams of his own, and his restlessness crystallises into the goal of going to school after he sees other boys his age talking about exotic subjects like poetry.

His modern uncle Bakhtiyar knows something of the life Niaz is missing out on. But his father’s fear and ignorance has made him vehemently opposed to the idea. The film follows the young Pashtun boy’s journey to make a crucial life-changing decision to abandon his dreams or follow his father’s expectations.