The life of a Middle-East family of immigrants in Europe. The father carries the heavy burden of banishment. To rescue his culture, his traditions, is mandatory, so he remains faithful to his past, his origins, to himself. His daughter is now a grown-up. He worries and wishes she would get married soon. The young woman leaves the family home every morning, but changes her clothes in a bar before she goes to work, her hair down. She puzzles the young boss of the company that employs her. He fell in love and is ready to do anything to marry her. But the young woman keeps her freedom of choice, just like her mother had done with her father. She won’t have time to introduce the only man for her to her parents. A friend of her father’s catches them. In a cafe.

This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.

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.