Even though he's been living with Fouad for three years, Malik is going to marry Halima. Since Fouad doesn't accept this marriage, which would imply a total upheaval of their everyday life, Malik makes him promise not to attend the wedding, which will take place in his parents’ village. As the ceremony approaches, the pressure builds. Will Malik choose to save face in front of his family and the wedding guests or will he choose to save the relationship with the one he loves?
Algeria, the 1930s. Younes is nine years old when he is put in his uncle's care in Oran. Rebaptized Jonas, he grows up among the Rio Salado youths, with whom he becomes friends. Emilie is one of the gang; everyone is in love with her. A great love story develops between Jonas and Emilie, which is soon unsettled by the conflicts troubling the country.
Roufa is an attractive young man, and that works out well for him because he is a practitioner of "bezness:" he's a sex-for-hire boy for the tourists who come to Tunisia. His girlfriend deeply resents his having sex with other women but doesn't seem much bothered that a rich German man he's been having sex with is hoping to sponsor him in Europe. She also has a hard time with his tendency to behave like any other Arab male around a woman, telling her how to take care of her business. As it turns out, she's got better sense than any of the men around her.
In Tunis, Fethi, a pretty face like Brando, and his friend Bannour, naive and shy, are employed in the pastry shop of the Italian Madame Rita. Their only concern is picking up Souad and her cousin Latifa in their convertible to take them for a ride "on the Wave side".
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.