Fatem, who is six-months pregnant, leaves her village to fill a frame with empty glasses for the elder of her village, who is the only person who can decipher the letters sent by members of the villagers' families who have gone to work in the cities.

In Algiers in 1993, while the civil war is starting, Mrs Osmane's tenants have to endure her bad temper. Her husband left her and the fear to lose her respectability haunt her. The former member of the Resistance during the Independence War persists in controlling the slightest moves of the households rather than struggle against her own frustrations. Learning her daughter is in love, the possibility of finding herself alone will push her to the limit: The symbolical Mrs Osmane "harem" is about to collapse.