Just before an American college student is set to leave for the airport after visiting her extended family in Ethiopia, she realizes her suitcases are too heavy. A fight breaks out between her relatives about what items should travel with her at their behest, versus which ones deserve to be left behind.

A mother and her three boys are on a small Greek island, where they prepare to reunite with her husband. Before they leave, they attend a party, and spend time reflecting on the possibility that they may never see their missing loved one again.

After losing her mother, a young Chinese American girl in New York City struggles to keep the rest of family together and grapples with the loneliness of being the less-loved daughter.

In the early 20th century, after the death of her parents, a young woman immigrates from Constantinople to America to live with her three older half-sisters—but their plans for her may not be what she desires.

A mother in Greece is grieving the death of one of her sons, which sends her to request more children from the city council. Granting her three sons to care for, she sets about transforming them from boys to men, employing incest at times.

A single mother living in the Bay Area is attempting to successfully raise three children, but finds trouble optimizing both their freedom and their safety.

Set in Canada in the 1980s, an Indian-Canadian immigrant woman travels abroad, attempting to learn how to grieve her husband and sons after a terrorist attack on the plane kills them on their way to India.

A middle-aged American woman living abroad feels alone and out of place, so she seeks company from the local church and the Mothers' Union held there. However, as an atheist, the uptight nature of the church and its members leave the woman feeling unsettled.

Two generations of Irish families recount their traumatic experiences and moments of secrecy. When two members of each finally meet decades later in America, they fall in love but the secrecy of their lives remains.

A girl visits Puerto Rico to bond with her grandfather, and they find that music brings them together. After she returns home to the US, the grandfather struggles to converse with her over the phone.