 In the former Soviet Union, sixteen year old Lilja (Oksana Akinshina) is very happy, because her mother is moving to the USA with her boyfriend. However, Lilja is left alone, without money or family in a very poor apartment. She spends her time with her only friend, the rejected boy Volodya (Artyom Bogucharsky). Lilja begins to prostitute in a nightclub to survive, and she meets a young man, Andrei (Pavel Ponomaryov), who seduces her and invites Lilja to move with him to Sweden with a promise of a job and lodging. When she arrives in Sweden, reality is not exactly as dreamed.