Oud, the resin-soaked heartwood of an infected agarwood tree, sells for as much as $5,000 a kilo, kilo for kilo pricier than gold, and Western perfume houses charge up to $2,000 for a few ounces cut with it. The tree grows only in parts of South East Asia, where a fungal infection triggers the resin as a defense response, and rising demand from the Gulf, the West, and Chinese buyers has pushed wild stock toward extinction. This film interviews perfume designers, shop owners in Middle Eastern markets, conservation experts, and law enforcement officials to trace how a substance prized in the Gulf as a gesture of hospitality and used in some cultures for incense in spiritual ceremonies has also drawn police payoffs, armed log poachers, and organized criminal networks into its supply chain. Admirers describe the scent as bound up with memory and nostalgia at the film's opening; the later sections follow the money and the violence that scarcity has attached to it, as legitimate trade and black-market extraction increasingly overlap.