In a farming village in the north of Chad in the 1970s, poverty and political repression are undercurrents to love and camaraderie. When a dispute with government tax collectors turns into a massacre, the life of this village is snuffed out, just like that. Friends since childhood, Djmi, a tailor, and Koni, a blacksmith, escape and join the rebel army. Their story is at the center of this perceptive depiction of civil war and Chad's chapter in the crucible of twentieth-century Africa. “There are two worlds: the one we live in and the one we fight for,” Koni tells Djmi. But the latter will always be racked with doubts about the violence of the undertaking as his friend pursues his own political destiny. It is no contradiction that this film about a brutal struggle is also richly visual, even breathtakingly beautiful. It depicts a world to live for.