A harrowing picture of the heritage of colonialism, focusing on a man driven mad by torture but saved by his wife, who restores his sanity and leads the progressive forces to rebuild the village.

El Kalaa, a village in southern Oran. Although already married, old Sidi planned to marry another. He sets his sights on the beautiful Aïssa, with whom Kaddour, his adopted son, is in love. The old man decides to play a trick on Kaddour to teach him never to covet a woman that an elder wants to marry...

For thirty years, French-Algerian sisters Zorah, Nohra and Djamila have been living in the hope of finding their brother Rheda, abducted by their father, and hidden in newly decolonised Algeria. Their relationship is shaken when Zorah, the eldest sister, decides to write a play based on the traumatising events of their childhood that haunted them their whole life. But when they learn that their father is dying, the three sisters decide to go to Algeria to seize their last opportunity to have him reveal where their brother is. When the past catches up, the three sisters have no choice but to put their differences aside.