Hana Doda (Alba Rohrwacher) grows up in the harsh, tradition-bound mountain landscape of Albania, where old laws and conservative gender roles have always determined people's lives. But Hana rebels: she takes an oath of eternal virginity according to the traditional law of the Kanun, because she does not see her future as a wife and servant. Henceforth she is treated as a man, and as a sign of her newfound freedom she is given the name Mark and a rifle. But she finds no fulfillment in her being and, after ten long years of loneliness, leaves for her cousin Lila in Milan. She hopes to start a new life there, but initially encounters rejection from her family and unexpected encounters in the foreign society. Bit by bit, Mark gets closer to Hana again - and has to decide which life she wants to lead from now on.