Bab El-Oued, a popular district of Algiers, in 1989, a few months after the riots. Boualem works at night in a bakery and steals the loudspeaker that was installed on his roof and was broadcasting the Imam's word... therefore preventing him from sleeping. This blunder is taken as a pretext by the Islamists to put the district under their control...
1957, the town of Mostaganem, Algeria: the country is still under French occupation, and repression of the National Liberation Front is at its height. The authorities indulge in torture, intimidation and public executions.