Set in a crowded apartment building in Baghdad in the 1990s, Absent tells the story of Dalal, a young woman living with the childless aunt and uncle who raised her. Dalal and her neighbors try to maintain normal lives, despite the crippling effect of bombings and international sanctions on their world.<BR>Affectionate, wry, and darkly comical, Absent paints a moving portrait of resourceful individuals struggling to get by in impossible circumstances. Upstairs, the fortuneteller Umm Mazin offers her customers cures for their physical and romantic ailments; below, Saad the hairdresser attends to a dwindling number of female customers; and on the second floor, the nurse Ilham dreams of her long-lost French mother to escape the grim realities she sees in the children's ward at the hospital. Hoping to bring in much-needed cash by selling honey, Dalal's uncle turns to beekeeping, and instructs his niece in the care and feeding of these temperamental creatures. With memories of happier times during the "Days of Plenty" of her childhood, Dalal falls in love for the first time against a background of surprise arrests, personal betrayals, and a crumbling social fabric that turns neighbors into informants.