Jaouad Sayeh

On 11 June 1986, one day after Morocco wrote football world cup history by scoring a surprising victory over Portugal, government official Daoud is ordered to secure a bridge outside Casablanca that sits between two hostile communities over an empty highway. Here, he is to await the expected but by no means certain visit of King Hassan II. Encounters with government supporters and the families of political prisoners; the mysterious appearance of a foreign woman and a Berber, as well as the story of a football crazy boy all prove to be a bit much for Daoud. Ever since the bloody ‘bread riots’ five years earlier, he has felt paralysed. But the euphoria and the hope he encounters here help to lift his mood. The Moroccan team’s success unleashes a new self-confidence and lust for life that transcends the surreal shadow of the monarchy.

Shams is a very beautiful young woman who was raised in the confines of her stepfather, El-Ghali, who had no children, without knowing that he is not his real father. Al-Ghaly loved Shams so much that he refused anyone who offered to marry him, and more than that, he moved her with his mother to the village and forced him to wear the veil to hide its charms from the youth of the tribe. But when love knocks on his door with a young man called "Mamoun", Al-Ghaly decides to lock him up and prevent him from going out.