The young Nianankoro will receive the ancestral knowledge of the Bambara, enabling him to master the forces around him. But his father does not accept him as an equal. Nianankoro must flee his wrath and embark on a journey of initiation to gain his new powers, before the inevitable confrontation with his father...

Chouf means "look" in Arabic. It also refers to the lookouts for the Marseille drug gangs. When his brother, a local gangster, is killed, Sofiane joins the "business" in his district to try and find the killers. He abandons his family and studies, quickly working his way up.

Rose leaves the Ivory Coast for France with her two sons, Jean and Ernest. The single mother gets a job as a chambermaid and struggles every day to keep her family afloat. As teenagers and then young adults, Jean and Ernest are confronted by the difficulties of integration.

On his return from Tajikistan, Paul is arrested on the French border. It transpires that his homonym made a trip to the URSS in 1980. Plunged into his past, he remembers his childhood in Roubaix, his family, the blossoming of his passion for anthropology, and Esther, his first love.

Early 1960s: the Algerian war stretches on. Salah, Kaddour and other destitute young Algerians join the French army as 'Harkis'. When Algerian independence becomes a probability, things get difficult for the 'Harkis'. Considered as traitors by their compatriots, some hope to obtain asylum in France.

1968. Robert, graduated from École Normale Supérieur and extreme left militant, is hired by Citroën as assembly line worker to revive the revolutionary fire. When the company requires workers to work three hours overtime per week for no pay, Robert and some others see the opportunity for a social movement.

In Douala, in a poor district in the city, the everyday life of Pierrette, a seamstress who takes care of her two children and invalid mother alone. Bravely determined and discrete, she is used to getting by from day-to-day but never gives up.

Forced to return to Loulouj, his childhood village, Kamel is warmly welcomed by his friends and family. But in wanting to help Louisa, a singer who has fled her husband and is shunned by the community, he is also excluded by the men in the village.

Ever since childhood, Mounir has lived with Dr. Pinget, who provides him with a materially comfortable life. When the young man decides to marry Murielle and have children, the couple's dependence on the doctor becomes overwhelming. Murielle finds herself locked into a suffocating environment...

Algiers, the 1990s. Nedjma, passionate about fashion design, defies the repression of the time by selling her designs in nightclubs. The constraint of the hijab weighs heavily on women. Devastated by her journalist sister's murder, Nedjma decides to break the rules and organise a catwalk show on the university campus...

Lebanon, 2008. Two documentary film-makers invite the French star Catherine Deneuve and their favourite actor Rabih Mroué to travel together through the regions affected by the 2006 war. Through their presence, they hope to once again capture the beauty their own eyes are no longer able to discern...

Within the walls of the Family Planning offices, women listen to other women grapple with the freedom to love. Women of all ages and all backgrounds, who can finally confide without fear. To at last be able to talk freely, see their desires more clearly, and make the right choices.

Occupied France, on the walls a red poster draws public attention to a group of foreign resistance fighters, mostly communists, lead by the Armenian Missak Manouchian. Arrested, they are executed by the Nazis in 1944. Thirty years later, a theatre company pays tribute to them.

France in the early 1980s. In a small provincial town, Philippe lives in the shadow of his brother Jérôme. Their world is dominated by pirate radio in their father's garage and the looming threat of military service. However, they are unaware that this world is soon about to change forever.

A Mediterranean cruise. Amongst the passengers: a former war criminal, a French philosopher, an American singer, a Palestinian ambassador... A night in Europe. Two children demand that their parents give them a serious explanation of liberty, equality, fraternity. Finally, a visit to six sites of real/false legends.