Cairo 2009. Back from the army, Salem, 25, joins his family in Cairo’s rag-picking district, home to a majority of Copts and more than 300,000 pigs. There, he finds his father, Youssef, a silent former swineherd and his older sister, Mira, married to Gaby, a manager of a small garbage recycling business. Salem is entrusted with a pig farm by his brother-in-law. He thrives in his work, makes friends, and falls in love. But when the swine flu appears abroad, psychosis undermines the neighborhood.

There are no cases in Egypt, and yet paranoia is gradually setting in Cairo. Salem can no longer sell his meat. For fear of illness, butcher shops no longer buy his meat. The rag pickers in the neighbourhood are stigmatized—because of their proximity to the pigs—and no longer have access to the buildings from which they collect their garbage. And without garbage, there is no more food for the pigs. Salem and his family are caught in the whirlwind of this “pig crisis”. The Mubarak government preventively passes a law to slaughter all the pigs. It is a shock for Salem, who finds himself torn between the decision to endorse the government’s decision and the actions of resistance.