This film deals with the aftermath of the Algerian war of liberation. Georges Montero, an Algerian-born Frenchman, manages an olive canning factory in Oran. He travels to Paris for a cataract operation. Marinette, his sister, and Belka, his friend and a recent immigrant, want him to return to France permanently. Friction develops between the two friends as Georges is pressured to sell his factory. Friendship developed between Georges and his surgeon, who as a French Arab has severed ties with his culture and country of origin.

The Other Shore

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.

The Harem of Madame Osmane

The film revolves around the life of the martyr Mustapha Ben Bouleid (1917-1956), who was a member of the Algerian National Movement, who worked with his comrades to explain the idea of the armed revolution in which he led in Aures region in 1954. The film depicts how Ben Bouleid traveled to a number of Arab countries Disguised to bring arms to Algeria for the revolution and how the French colonial forces arrested him in the Tunisian-Libyan border, and from there to Algeria to be sentenced to death.