„Family Instinct” is a film about incest - social taboo and a violation of religious norms. Zanda is a 28-year-old woman, trying to survive with her two children in a god-forsaken Latvian village. Valdis is serving a year's sentence in prison for physically abusing them. Family Instinct follows Zanda for the duration of that year as she tries to cope with the hardships of poverty and the amorous of frequently drunken attentions of several local men. During the year local community forces her to make a difficult choice: to stay with Valdis or with her children.