On the day of his retirement, a veteran CIA agent learns that his former protégé has been arrested in China, is sentenced to die the next morning in Beijing, and that the CIA is considering letting that happen to avoid an international scandal.

A young British officer resigns his post when he learns of his regiment's plan to ship out to the Sudan for the conflict with the Mahdi. His friends and fiancée send him four white feathers as symbols of what they view as his cowardice. To redeem his honor, he disguises himself as an Arab and secretly saves their lives.

Hossein, a teenage boy who is connected to the increasingly globalized world, dreams of a freer future far from his native Tangier. His mother Naïma, however, is determined not to let him follow in his brothers’ tragic footsteps, and takes him to the south against his will. In this new setting he gets his first taste of romantic love and disillusionment, and eventually reconnects with his mother, whose devotion he had previously shunned.