The Silences of the Palace
(Samt el-koussour)

25-year-old Alia is fed up with singing at weddings to entertain the guests. The latest of these humiliating experiences fills her with disgust for her lifestyle and a subdued revolt against Lofti who has shared the past ten years of Alia’s life but keeps refusing to marry her. Once again, Lofti denies Alia her right to keep the child she is expecting. News of the death of Prince Sid’Ali, a former bey, suddenly takes Alia back to her past. At the funeral, she goes back to the palace where she spent her childhood and adolescence. She was born there of a servant mother and an unknown father… who could well be the Prince. As she wanders through deserted corridors, facinating and cruel images from her childhood come back to her. She brings to the surface memories she thought were buried with her mother, brave and beautiful Khedija who fought in relentless silence to protect her daughter from the princes’ covetous glances, so Alia would definitely escape the fate she herself had to suffer…