The man reads his newspaper on a toilet bowl. The woman presents the newspaper behind a television. In fact, he's a prisoner, she's a spy. But what terrible secret is he hiding?
Jan 1993
In Kabylie, rude mountain region in the north of Algeria. Arezki finds the young Larbi exhausted, buried under the snow. He takes him in and nurses him until he's recovered. The host seduces Arezki's daughter. She is pregnant. This is an unsupportable shame to the father of the female sinner. Arezki claims vengeance. He leaves his house and takes the oath not to come back before having killed Larbi who betrayed him under his own roof.
Jan 1995
Barely relieved from a serious depression and against the advice of his psychiatrist, Slah, theater director, mentally weakened by his career, announces to his wife Amel, a rich woman who finances his projects, his decision to mount the famous play Essoud (The Dam) of Mahmoud Messadi renowned for its complexity. But the same evening, driving his car, Slah overthrows a young woman named Aisha. At first distraught, he then experiences a strange fascination for this beautiful young girl contrarian who becomes his friend and his muse. Amel, her husband's moral, emotional and financial support, convinced the director of the theater to program Le Barrage. Although suffering in silence of the presence of Aisha, Amel decides for love for her husband to invite the young woman near them, in the field of her parents, in an oasis of the south of Tunisia. A strange three-way household is formed when doubts and suspicions, desires and temptations, love and complexities are revealed.
Oct 2000
