A team of researchers meets at Mount Çika, in an effort to document the dialect of the Greek-speaking Himariote villages. The area was subjected to political prosecution and after the fall of Communism in Albania, the region was marked by waves of migration. Today, its population has been decreased significantly, with the remaining residents being predominantly elderly women.

Why the Mountains are Black follows four ethnographers; Aristotle Spyrou (University of Tirana), Brian D. Joseph (Ohio State University), Alexander Novik (Kunstkamera museum) and Andrey N. Sobolev (Șt. Petersburg University) and their on-field research methods in attempting to preserve a dialect which is in danger of disappearing, through interviewing its last remaining speakers at the edges of the Ceraunian Mountains.