Hidden between a row of fishermen gutting fish, standing on a floor full of blood and intestines we find Tobias (10). In front of him is a big box filled with cod heads. With an almost frightening pace he slices and cuts the tongues off the heads, and puts them on a big nail. In the northern part of Norway, Tobias and many other children work as cod tongue cutters. The tongues are considered a delicacy, and they are exported around the world to countries like China and Japan. But in Northern Norway they are simply everyday food when in season. The children start from the age of 6, and can earn a lot of money during a winter season. This job has always been reserved for the children, as long as the fishing industry has existed. They even have their own cod tongue cutting championship every February. This winter, city girl Ylva (9), from Oslo, will spend her winter vacation up in the North. Normally she lives far away from cod heads, sharp knives, fish blood and intestines, but this winter she will visit her grandparents to try and learn the art of cutting tongues, just like her mother and her grandfather did before her.
Young Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova relocates from Berlin to Oslo to launch her career as a painter. In April of 2015, her two most valuable, large-format paintings are stolen - with care - in broad daylight from the windowfronts of Galleri Nobel in Oslo's city center. Desperate for answers about the theft of her paintings, Barbora is presented with an unusual opportunity to reach out to one of the men involved in the heist - Norwegian career criminal, Karl-'Bertil' Nordland. Filmmaker Benjamin Ree begins to document the story after Barbora unbelievably invites her thief to sit for a portrait, capturing the unlikely relationship that ensues as the equally damaged duo find common ground and form an inseparable bond through their mutual affinity for art.