Doria's father abandons the family and returns to Morocco to marry again and have a son.

Doria's school teachers refer her to therapy after she becomes withdrawn, beginning her weekly sessions with Mme. Burlaud.

Yasmina begins working as a cleaning lady at a motel where her racist boss refuses to learn her real name.

Doria meets Lila, a young divorced mother with a four-year-old daughter named Sarah, and accepts a babysitting job.

Aunt Zohra's oldest son Youssef is arrested for his involvement in drug dealing and auto theft.

Social worker Mme. Du visits and persuades Yasmina to enroll in a paid job training program with literacy classes.

Yasmina leaves her demeaning motel job and begins the training program Mme. Du arranged, gaining new confidence.

Youssef is sentenced to a year in prison, leaving Aunt Zohra to face the consequences alone.

After a passionate political argument about voter apathy, Nabil unexpectedly leans in and kisses Doria.

Doria fails her school year and is transferred into a vocational hairdressing program rather than repeating the year.

Yasmina secures a new job as a cafeteria worker at a local elementary school, with a uniform bearing her real name.

Doria has a devastating first day at hairdressing school, surrounded by students unlike her, and cries alone at home.

Mme. Burlaud ends Doria's weekly therapy sessions, telling her she has progressed far enough to manage without them.

Nabil arrives at Doria's apartment unexpectedly, apologizes for the first kiss, and then kisses her again.

Doria coins a new hopeful phrase by replacing 'kif kif' with 'kiffer' and imagines a future working in politics.

When Doria's father abandons the family to start a new life in Morocco, he leaves Doria and her mother Yasmina in poverty and isolation in a Parisian housing project. Doria is referred to therapy, resists help from every adult around her, and watches helplessly as the people she loves face hardships of their own. Small changes accumulate: Doria takes a babysitting job, Yasmina escapes a demeaning motel and enters a literacy program, and Nabil's unexpected kiss forces Doria to confront feelings she has been avoiding. A failed school year lands Doria in a hairdressing vocational track she never chose, and her first brutal day there brings her to tears. By the final weeks of the year, Yasmina has transformed into a confident, working woman, Mme. Burlaud discharges Doria from therapy, and Nabil returns to win Doria over properly, leaving her to coin a new phrase that captures her hard-won sense of hope.

The main arc of Doria's year of loss, struggle, and tentative hope.

Ramadan begins and Doria's principal suspects her mother forged the school exemption form, unable to imagine an illiterate parent.

Doria secretly reads 'The Sand Child,' a novel about a girl raised as a boy, and hides it from Mme. Du.

Bored and aimless, Doria rides the metro with no destination and trails a gypsy accordion player from car to car.

Doria and Yasmina visit Aunt Zohra, an old family friend whose husband also took a second wife back in Algeria.

Without her father forcing them home early, Doria and Yasmina stay until the very end of the local summer fair.

At the summer fair, Doria spots Hamoudi with a blonde girlfriend named Karine and feels jealous and unsettled.

The cleaning staff at Yasmina's motel go on strike led by Fatouma Konaré, but Yasmina feels she cannot afford to join them.

Doria introduces Hamoudi to Lila's daughter Sarah, and he is immediately charmed when the little girl points out his bad teeth.

Aziz, the neighborhood grocer Doria imagined pairing with Yasmina, announces he is marrying a young woman from Morocco.

Hamoudi cleans up his life and gets a security guard job but is soon fired after being blamed for missing stock.

Doria and Yasmina make their first visit to the Eiffel Tower, which Yasmina has never seen despite living nearby for two decades.

Lila tells Doria how her cross-cultural marriage fell apart under the relentless hostility of her French father-in-law.

Yasmina's literacy teacher Jacqueline begins visiting their apartment regularly to knit, becoming a genuine friend to both women.

Hamoudi takes a legitimate job at the local minimarket and commits to leaving his life of drug dealing behind for good.

Shérif, the neighbor who has gambled for years on a fortune teller's prediction of wealth, finally wins the lottery.

While Doria navigates her central struggles, the wider world of the Paradise estate constantly presses in on her life. From a lonely metro ride with a gypsy accordionist to a visit with Aunt Zohra's family and a summer fair finally enjoyed without a father forcing them home early, Doria accumulates small but meaningful experiences of community. The motel strike, Hamoudi's failed attempt to go straight as a security guard, and Aziz's self-serving marriage to a younger woman all show how the people around her seek and sometimes fumble toward stability. A first trip to the Eiffel Tower, Lila's cautionary tale of a broken marriage, and the quiet arrival of Yasmina's friend Jacqueline add emotional texture to the year. Hamoudi's move to a legitimate minimarket job signals genuine change in at least one corner of the estate, and the long-suffering Shérif's lottery win suggests that fate can occasionally be generous. Together, these moments build the world Doria lives in and the people she cannot help but care about.

The community moments and secondary characters that fill and shape Doria's world.

Mme. Burlaud shows Doria ink blot images and refuses to believe her when she insists she does not miss her father.

Mme. Burlaud suggests Doria attend a city-funded ski trip, but Doria refuses because she will not leave Yasmina alone.

Doria recalls her father ripping a shirtless boy-band poster off her bedroom wall and declaring it the work of Satan.

Nabil, a neighbor's son, begins coming to Doria's apartment to help with her schoolwork, and she finds him condescending.

Doria gets her period for the first time and awkwardly discusses the news with Mme. Burlaud.

Doria tells Mme. Burlaud about a recurring dream in which she flies out her window but crashes into a wall.

Doria learns that a neighbor named Samra is monitored and sometimes beaten by the men in her family whenever she comes home late.

A neighbor's letter informs Doria and Yasmina that Doria's father's new wife has given birth to a son.

Samra escapes her family's control and runs away to Paris to be with a French boyfriend she met at work.

Four-year-old Sarah casually tells Doria that Hamoudi and Lila are in love, leaving Doria feeling blindsided and betrayed.

Doria stops babysitting Sarah and finds a farewell letter with a twenty-euro note from Hamoudi in her mailbox.

A young woman from Doria's neighborhood who dreamed of acting escapes her family's restrictions and eventually joins the Comédie Française.

Doria turns sixteen and realizes that nobody, including Yasmina, has remembered or acknowledged her birthday.

Aunt Zohra reveals that Youssef has become a religious extremist after being radicalized by other inmates during his time in prison.

Nabil visits Doria's apartment, recites Rimbaud poetry fluently, and the two make a plan to go to the movies together.

Beneath the main events of Doria's year lies a sequence of revelations and decisions that quietly drive her transformation. From her therapist refusing to believe she feels nothing about her father's departure, to memories of his violence, to her first experience of puberty, Doria is slowly forced to confront truths she has been avoiding. The stories of Samra's imprisonment and daring escape, the news of her father's new son, and the shock of learning Hamoudi has fallen for Lila all force Doria to grapple with love, loyalty, and what it means to be a girl in her world. A forgotten birthday, a neighborhood girl's escape to the Comédie Française, and Youssef's radicalization in prison each reframe her understanding of freedom and its costs. By the time Nabil sits in her apartment reciting Rimbaud, Doria has passed through enough loss and surprise to recognize something genuine when it arrives. These are the turning points, large and small, that form the quiet engine of her growth.

The personal discoveries and emotional shifts beneath the surface of Doria's story.