Plot Summary:Fatima, a strong-minded woman, is the lead masseuse of a hammam in Algiers. This is 1995 and the situation is tense in the capital. The day ahead promises to be hectic for all, and for Fatima in particular. Already, while walking to her place of work, she is the distant witness of a terrorist attack. At the hammam, Fatima should feel better, but the atmosphere proves electric in her small enclosed world, she has great difficulty in maintaining order. All the more as Meriem, a sixteen-year-old pregnant girl comes to take shelter at the hammam. And as irate brother, Mohamed, is after her to cleanse his honor in blood.
In the heart of the hammam, far from the accusing gaze of men, mothers, lovers, virgins and Islamic fanatics, butts and burqas, mingle and mix, confront one another, with laughter, tears, rage, the Bible and the Koran... before the flash of a dagger and the silence of God.