Twelve jurors — ordinary people with struggles of their own — must decide the case of a woman accused of killing her best friend and her own daughter.

In one fell swoop, nine-year old David Van de Steen lost his mother, his father and his sister in an attack by the Brabant Killers in Aalst. His grandfather, Albert, has the well-nigh impossible task of giving David a new perspective on life, a future.

In Belgium today, a young boy and an adolescent girl who have travelled alone from Africa pit their invincible friendship against the difficult conditions of their exile.

Many years after a sweltering summer that spun out of control, Eva returns to the village she grew up in with an ice block in the back of her car. In the dead of winter, she confronts her past and faces up to her tormentors.