Youssef Soltane, a 45-year-old Tunisian intellectual, is the product of a generation that lived the era of euphoria and great ideologies in the sixties, and their subsequent failure. He was incarcerated and tortured for his political opinions. Furthermore, his relationship with Zineb, a young, beautiful bourgeois, only brings him more trouble. During one long winter night, Youssef wanders in search of an emotional haven, prey to all the questions that flood his memory.

A community of people rejected by society live in an abandoned residence located in a "Medina": an old town in Tunisia. Al Bab, a local criminal running the residence's prostitution circle, returns from prison on his wedding day. Fraj, his brother and the town warlock, falls in love with Ramla, his brother's future wife: He is the only man of the residence who has seen her face, as she is kept prisoner in one of the rooms until the wedding night.