São Paulo, 1984. Agostinho, an old and tired Physics professor, is married to Januária, a retired school principal. In his classes, he begins to feel attracted to one of his students, Márcia, an HIV positive teenager. Quickly, the attraction of the two turns into an impossible love.
Valter's life turns upside-down when a gang of smalltime criminals move in next door. Valter's wife Iara wants something to be done about their new neighbors whos nigthtly activities does not allow them to sleep. Valter just wants to be left alone.
Free adaptation of Machado de Assis's short story "Pai Contra Mãe", having some of Nireu Cavalcanti's 18th Century chronicles as inspiration, the film traces parallels between life in during the slavery period and in modern Brazil.
Theater director asks his actors for a research on human cruelty and misery in Brazil, while trying to raise funds for his next production, a play based on a story by Machado de Assis, "A Causa Secreta" (The Secret Cause). The troupe oblige and go around town witnessing long lines in National Health Services, inhuman conditions in public hospitals and poor people being constantly humiliated. They find people are becoming indifferent to human suffering.
Carolina gathers some old friends in her house on Paquetá Island, in Rio de Janeiro. She will find, among them, the boyfriend she had during her childhood and with whom she had exchanged vows of eternal love.
