Mehdi Ramdani

1956. Algeria is a French colony. Fernand and Helene are madly in love. Fernand is an activist, fighting for independence alongside the Algerians. Helene is fighting for Fernand’s life. History will irrevocably change the course of their destiny.

In the city of Guelma, which was once called Heliopolis in ancient times, the daily life of an Algerian family takes its usual course. But on May 8, 1945, the day the end of World War II was announced, demonstrations by the Algerian people against the French colonial power and for the country's independence took place, which were bloodily suppressed by the French army and French settler militias. The event went down in history as the Sétif and Guelma massacre.

One evening in Algiers, Myassa is raped by a man with a limp dick. Back home, she can't take a shower because the plumbing is broken. She has two priorities: file a complaint and find a plumber. She ends up face to face with her rapist.

Algeria today. Past and present collide in the lives of a newly wealthy property developer, a young woman torn between the path of reason and sentiment and an ambitious neurologist impeded by wartime wrongdoings. Three stories that plunge us into the human soul of a contemporary Arab society.

In an estate in the South of Algiers, in the middle of the nineties. Djaber and Yamina are neighbours, but do not know each other. For one as for the other, it is so difficult to meet between girls and boys, that they almost stopped dreaming about it. In a few days nevertheless, what was up to then that deaf and distant violence explodes in front of them, modifying for ever their fates.

A small town nestled in the heart of the Vosges forest sees Yanis, a young outcast in his twenties, arrive at its train station. Taken in by one of the local hotel owners, Yanis finally thinks he has found a peaceful place.

Three guys have a discussion sitting on the ground floor of their building. Their conversation is about their best friend's trip and a strange event that is meant to take place the next day. Upstairs, Fouad packs his bags. He still doesn't know whether he'll dare to say goodbye to them or not.

Nacer, a 45 year old journalist, is observing the appearance of strange yellow sandstorms looming over Algiers and its surroundings. While covering the phenomenon for his newspaper, he starts witnessing more and more supernatural events, until his late wife Fajar returns to life. Faced with increasingly threatening storms, Samir has to face a dark past that haunts him.

Yanis, a young Kabyl man, is leaving for Paris the following day. He goes to the nearby village to tie up loose ends. There he learns of the death of a childhood friend and meets another at the funeral. A mishap in a café turns his last day in the backwaters of an earthy and soggy Algeria into a road movie, first desperate, then thoughtful and melancholic.