A warm summer in Montreal. Two black men, Man and Bouba, share an apartment. Man is an ambitious author, writing on The Great Novel. Bouba is a lazy amateur philosopher who quotes the Koran. Man's habit of picking up young white women makes many young white men jealous...

Taking advantage of his mother's absence as she departs on a cruise ship for some rest and relaxation, 12-year-old Félix sets out to find his father, a fisherman who disappeared at sea two years earlier.