In August 2001, the Norwegian freighter Tampa picks up 433 mostly Afghan asylum seekers from a sinking fishing boat in the Indian Ocean, then finds itself refused entry to Australian waters, setting off a standoff that becomes a flashpoint in the country's asylum politics. The film follows two men who lived it: Captain Arne Rinnan, who commanded the ship and had to decide whether to defy the Australian government's order to turn back, and Fahim Nabawi, one of the refugees aboard, recounting the voyage and the days of uncertainty anchored off Christmas Island. Their accounts run side by side, one describing the pressure of a ship's bridge and international law, the other describing what it feels like to be a bargaining chip in a diplomatic dispute you have no say in. Kamil Grzybowski keeps the focus narrow and personal rather than tracing the wider policy fallout, letting the captain and the passenger describe the same eleven days from opposite ends of the same deck.