Naalu Jeremiassen, a mother of four, and Jens Reimer, a hunter, both find themselves in police detention. She has killed her husband. He has punched and kicked his wife to within an inch of her life. Neither can remember exactly what happened... The film sets an intimate exploration of their cases in the context of a hunter-gatherer society whose notion of justice and punishment is extremely tolerant, but whose very way of life is collapsing in the face of 'progress'. "In principal, we cannot expel people, throw them out of society, here in Greenland. We need all the people we have, and we have to accept those we have been given. In Europe you can afford to sweep people under the carpet" District Court Judge, Jens Keldsen. This spirit of rehabilitation and forgiveness has been written into Greenland's criminal law. In its judgement of Naalu and Jens, the court will be obliged to consider their circumstances above their crimes. With the co-operation of the local police, the film makes its own investigation into 'mitigating circumstances'. It is Naalu's case and her complex personality that come to dominate the story. By coming to an understanding of what a murder in the family feels like, both for the perpetrator and for those left behind, and of why it might have happenend, the film invites the audience to reach its own verdict before the court decides.