Youssef, a fifty year-old director, is scouting for a location for his next film in South Tunisia. After travelling around the region and capturing precious images on film, he takes a break in a mysterious village where he meets a beautiful shepherdess before vanishing into the night. His 4-wheel drive breaks down in the desert, leaving him helpless in the middle of nowhere.
His car is his only means of survival, as he not only has his scripts, photos and various papers in his trunk, but also water and biscuits. Succumbed to his fate, Youssef builds himself a shelter and goes on dreaming about his film.
Meanwhile, his assistant and scriptwriter are looking for him across the whole of Southern Tunisia, in places that are partly made up by the director's imagination. Youssef draws characters that appear in front of him. He nearly gets lost in his hallucinations, until he suddenly realizes that he is actually playing the main character in his own film.