It is the first day of Ramadan in 1981 and the people of a small Moroccan village in the Atlas Mountains are preparing for a period of fasting and deprivation. During this time of piety, Amina and her seven year-old son Mehdi moves into the village with her father-in-law Ahmed. Mehdi′s father is in prison but the boy believes that he has gone to work in France. The boy′s mother and grandfather maintain this illusion for the sake of Mehdi′s success at school and to prevent their shame from becoming public knowledge. At the school, Mehdi is entrusted with the honored task of looking after the teacher′s chair. He undertakes this duty with obsessive devotion and his relationship with the village, his school friends and indeed the world, all begin to be filtered through his affinity with this object. Mehdi′s custodians suspect that their secret is causing this profound emotional disturbance in the boy, but feel that the impact of the truth would be even more devastating. The fragile balance of their lives threatens to explode every day.