In Algeria, Youcef escapes from a psychiatric asylum located at the edge of the desert. He was a fighter and, years later, he still believes himself to be a prisoner of the French army. He rejoins what he thinks is his resistance group. He finds the bones of his comrades, buries them, and promises himself that he will visit their families, one after the other, to honor their memory. He goes underground and makes quick forays into the villages. He is struck by what he sees there. Young people queuing for bread, former FLN leaders living in the villas of the colonists, and farm workers mistreated by their Algerian foremen. As for the women, although they played a decisive role in the liberation of the country, they are now cloistered or forced to go out in public wearing masks. When he is discovered by the authorities, Youcef cannot believe that thirty years have passed. This nuisance must be eliminated...

An oasis lost in the Saharan desert more than 700km from Algiers. A society still functioning on centuries-old rituals. The only connection to the city is a bus that passes once a day. Moussa, disabled from birth, lives there with his sister Zineb; They try, together, to reconstitute a family unit that the war has destroyed. The family is the dream of the idyllic times of childhood, of times when parents took all the responsibilities. Moussa is perfectly independent, although he has no arms, he nevertheless loves being cared for by his sister. Zineb, for her part, does not dare to face the new world that a marriage would constitute. Life passes punctuated by the same gestures. Zineb takes the bus to go to work at the date packaging factory. Moussa goes to see the schoolmaster, draws or dreams of Mériem, the woman he loves. A rose secretly grows in the sand, which Moussa waters every day.