Zorah (Isabelle Adani), Djamila (Rachida Bakri) and Nora (Maiwenn) are three sisters, women of Algerian origin who have not yet dealt with painful traumas from their youth. As children, they moved from Algeria to France with their father and mother, just before the Algerian war for independence, and after years and years of repressing the trauma, theater director and eldest sister Zorah decided to stage a play about her family’s story as a way of confronting the past . Of course, this idea will completely shock not only her old mother, but also her sisters, who are not enthusiastic about the idea of speaking publicly and explicitly about what they experienced, especially since Zorah entrusted the role of her mother in her young days to her daughter Fara ( Hafsia Herzi).
Parallel to the story in the present, we follow not only the story of their childhood and youth after their parents’ divorce and after their father kidnapped their younger brother and took him back to Algeria, but we also have flashbacks during the Algerian War of Independence when parents met, but also the events before the divorce. Screenwriter and director Yamina Benguigui (who also had a short foray into politics during the government of President Francois Hollande) in this poignant and emotional drama actually dealt with events from her own past, since it is obvious that the character embodied by Adjani was designed largely by herself .
Until the end, the sisters will try to face their past and traumas in such a way that they will go to Algeria in search of their father and brother, and as Zarah will work on the play, the painful wounds and traumas will only intensify and open. We will understand that the mother did not actually tell her daughters the whole story of her life and what happened in the days that they may not even remember. It is a poignant and moving drama about patriarchy and the social differences between France, where the sisters grew up and were formed, and Algeria, which is still their ancestral homeland and with which they still have strong ties even though they have not been there for years. It is a story about people with completely unclear identities, but also about strong women who, despite everything, managed to realize themselves in the fields of their activities, but still have some unresolved accounts with their past.