Golden clogs
(Sfayah min dhahab)

Youssef Soltane, a 45-year-old intellectual, is the pure product of a generation that experienced the euphoric periods of ideologies and their collective failure. Youssef was imprisoned for a long time and tortured for his activities as a political opponent. His tempestuous affair with Zineb, the beautiful young middle-class woman who had introduced him to love and who had sheltered and hidden him during his clandestine activities, brought him nothing but setbacks. A few months after his release from prison, his repudiated wife, Fatma, died, leaving their three children in the care of their grandmother. On that long winter’s night, the feast of Ashoura, Youssef wanders in search of an emotional refuge, of tenderness, prey to all the questions that shake his memory.