A 19 year-old Swiss woman travels to her birthplace—an isolated, barren Berber settlement in the mountainous desert landscape of Algeria—to find her biological mother, whom she has never met. The perilous journey immerses her in a world virtually untouched by contemporary society, one that still clings to tribal mores and strict religious codes of conduct.

On the outskirts of Algiers, Algeria. the arrival of the satellite dishes governs the lives of the inhabitants. Dissatisfied with their lives, they think of themselves as the heroes of American soap opera and movies, so JR, Sue Ellen, Rambo, Kojak, Spock and others take possession of bodies and minds, with many typical American culture elements. These heroes mix in a beautiful funny mess, with tradition and modernism, Islam and television, reality and fiction.

A Paris police detective plays rough with a prostitute and her pimp/lover, whom he wants as an informant.