Set at the outbreak of the Iraq war in 2003, THE TIGER AND THE SNOW is about a Roman poet and lecturer named Attilio (Benigni) who feels compelled to head to Baghdad when he discovers that the woman he loves, Vittoria (Nicoletta Braschi) has been seriously injured during a bomb explosion. Moving heaven and earth, he manages to get to Iraq, and through a combination of luck and pig-headedness, and inspired by his passionate love of Vittoria, he finds the hospital where Vittoria has been taken. Unconscious, and more dead than alive, the woman of his dreams is in need of a drug that will relieve the pressure of the cerebral edema that is killing her. Given that there is nothing immediately available, Attilio goes off into the city in search of the drug - to find only abandoned pharmacies and ruins. Refusing to abandon hope, Attilio must confront the horrors and disasters of war to save the love of his life.