Set in the late 1940s and early 1950s in the city of Hama, this film captures a turbulent period in the modern history of the Arab world, rocked by the Palestinian nakbah, and a coup d'état in Syria at the hands of Husni al-Za'eem. In the whirlwind of this turmoil, Rémond Boutros tells the story a simple, poor stone carver who struggles for survival. He wanders endlessly, far from his wife and family, looking to feed them while evading the grip of the secret police. The film depicts how the working poor grappled with the brutality of living conditions in which their lives slipped from their hands. The stone carver looking desperately to etch his imprint, his identity on the stones he carved.

Directed by: Rémond Boutros
Script: Rémond Boutros
Camera: George Lutfi al-Khouri
Music: Hussein Nazek
Editing: Antoinette Azriyeh
Production: General Organization for Cinema, Syria
Cast: Samar Sami, Jamal Suleiman, Salloum Haddad, Noura Rahhal 

After graduating from the Film Institute in Kiev in 1976, Rémond Boutros returned to Syria and directed the documentary The Witness (al-Shahed) for the National Organization for Cinema, a film about the ‘Aasi river that runs the border between Syria and Lebanon. This short documentary was a blue-print for his first long feature film, The Greedy Ones (al-Tahaleb, 1991) set in the filmmaker's native hometown of Hama, where he also shot his second film, Exodus (al-Tirhal, 1997). His cinematic vocabulary distinguishes itself with a strong sensibility for the visual and a keeness for mythology and local lore.