In the desert landscape of southern Tunisia, two chess-crazy brothers run a café. While on a train, one of them meets the beautiful Sarah, and their great passion drives the brothers apart.

This film explores the impact of the modern world on the traditional male society of the Maghreb. It is a film about men who prefer to live life as an abstract game and the free-spirited woman who changes everything. Said and Youssef have fulfilled a life-long dream by opening a "chess bar" in the middle of the desert. They sit around drinking palm wine, playing board games and composing love poetry to imaginary women; all this changes with the arrival of the sexually liberated and uninhibited Sarah.

A film by Abderrahmane Sissako

Tunisia, 1997, 26m., color. In Arabic with English subtitles

Collection Africa Dreaming.


Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako.
Produced by Nomadis Images (Dora Bouchoucha) & Arte France