Bassam Mortada was just five years old when he first visited his father Mahmoud in the notorious Abo Zaabal prison. The experience, marked by the police raid still fresh in his memory, was dominated by incomprehension. But over the years, a feeling of resentment grew. Bassam was brought up by his mother, Fardous, a socialist activist herself. As a single mother, she had to overcome many difficulties, and when Mahmoud was finally released, he seemed a changed man. Shortly afterwards, he went into exile in Vienna, leaving Fardous a second time, this time bitterly.

Bassam gradually distanced himself from his parents, repressing his own trauma and confusion. In this introspective documentary, he films his attempt to reconnect with them and rediscover a historical truth, seeking to understand and heal. Through conversations with his parents and their friends, tapes recorded by his father from Vienna, a theatrical monologue by his father's best friend, as well as archive and period footage, he sheds light on the impact of Egypt's ‘big' history on his family's ‘little' story.