Amid apparent normality, the mother of an ordinary family vanishes, setting off a quest that begins in the outskirts of Paris and ends in Tunis.

Salmane is 36 and still lives with his parents in a housing project on the outskirts of Paris, nicknamed La Caverne aux oiseaux—The Birds’ Cave. His days pass in a haze of quiet routine, surrounded by neighbors whose small-scale dramas could play out anywhere in the world. But one morning, everything shifts.

Amani, his mother, vanishes—no goodbye, no trace. Her disappearance shatters the fragile balance of their lives and sends Salmane and his father reeling. Forced out of his inertia, Salmane sets off on a journey that’s both physical and deeply personal. His path leads him to Tunis, and into the heart of the secrets his family never dared to speak.

At last, Salmane steps out of the Cave. What follows is a reckoning—with the truth about who his parents really are, and the silent sacrifices they made to build a life shaped by exile and survival.

With Four Days Without my Mother, Ramsès Kefi delivers a stunning debut—a meditation on identity, belonging, and the hard road to becoming oneself. Blending tenderness and heartbreak, this is a powerful portrait of working-class life and the fierce, complicated love that binds families together.