Michel Tabet

A Lebanese Australian teenager struggles with coming out to his childhood best friend and cousin on his sixteenth birthday. A coming of age drama about toxic masculinity, peer pressure, friendship and being true to yourself.

The film takes place in the Sahrawi refugee camps installed since 1975 near Tindouf, southwest Algeria. It takes us on a filmed investigation led by two anthropologists and their Sahrawi guide with families of martyrs and seriously wounded from the Sahara War (1975-1991). Throughout the encounters, the narrative evokes the story of a rehabilitation center for war-wounded people known to all under the enigmatic name of Al-Madrasa, "the school".

In a Beirut apartment, two girls wander around, confronting each other with unspoken words. Mixed-up messages and ambiguous actions take place in an ever-changing place surrounded by abstract and concrete sounds. The two girls break the wall of silence with every human emotions : confusion, desire, violence, appetite, bravery, ecstasy, happiness and separation.