After a long time at sea, the sailor Asa returns to the Kazakh steppe, where his sister Samal and his brother-in-law Ondas are raising their children and rearing sheep. As Asa is unmarried and the nomadic family is not wealthy, he must be married off. Yet there is only one girl left on the steppe of marriageable age: Tulpan. Ondas and Asa begin the negotiations. Asa recounts his adventures with sea monsters, whilst Ondas praises his brother-in-law’s two medals and offers ten sheep and a tacky chandelier. Just as everyone finally reaches an agreement, Tulpan disrupts their plans: she finds Asa’s protruding ears completely unacceptable.
Asa is utterly disappointed. Without a marriage, he won’t get a flock, and without a flock, his lifelong dream of a yurt with electricity and its own water tank will never come true. On top of that, he’s clumsy when it comes to handling sheep – a fact that makes Ondas increasingly unbearable. But Asa takes up the fight: against his ears, against his brother-in-law’s displeasure, and against the sheep, who suddenly all start giving birth to their lambs… (Pandora Film Verleih)