Twelve-year-old Noura dangles uncertainly in that difficult netherworld between childhood and adulthood. His growing libido has gotten him banned from the women's baths, where his mother took him when he was younger, but he's not yet old enough to participate in grown-up discussions with the men of his Tunisian village. Noura's only real friend is a troublemaker named Salih -- the village political outcast.

Hamid is a journalist, in his late thirties and he sees his celibacy with his petty bourgeois family as an escape route so as not to resemble his own. His family wants to marry him at all costs to his neighbor Rym (30) to put an end to his hesitation, and the bad tongues that do not spare hardened single people. Not daring to oppose his family's decision to marry, Hamid prefers to avoid the atmosphere of preparations.