Birthday navigates the fraught date of May 7, 2008 in Beirut from the perspective of Razan, 14, who is busy messaging friends in preparation for her birthday, only to be her planning disrupted by the sound of gunfire echoing throughout the city. As the fighting between militant factions escalates, Razan begins to understand that her father stranded in Damascus is in peril and her birthday is becoming increasingly trivial. Birthday aims to ask important questions about how the smaller trivial details of our lives can continue to exist against the backdrop of a collapsing world.