She was fleeing the West, and he the East. She was European, light-skinned, on her way back from Java, at the edge of the world. Once North-Vietnamese, now a proud Frenchman, he had an apartment in the center of Paris. This film tells the story of their embrace, 20 nights under the Parisian sky, in the shadow of Notre Dame. During these 20 nights they find refuge in each other's bodies.
Before immigrating to the West, Abdallah travels to the coastal city of Nouadhibou, Mauritania, to visit his mother. Although he grew up there, Abdallah feels anything but at home in his old neighborhood: He can no longer speak the local dialect, and he wears western clothes that immediately cast him as an outsider. But, as Abdallah spends time with a young boy and an elderly electrician, he can't help but feel a sense of loss for the life he's abandoning.