La película está basada en las experiencias del doctor Drauzio Varella en la prisión estatal Carandiru, en São Paulo, Brasil, durante sus trabajos de prevención del SIDA. En la prisión se encontró con cientos de convictos bajo condiciones infrahumanas hasta el punto culminante de 1992 cuando una revuelta provocó el asesinato de 111 hombres.
Solano is often plagued by nightmares in which, during the Middle Ages, he is pursued by the hunter Faro, who intends to kill him. On discovering, in an antiquarian, a tapestry that represents a hunt and that reminds him of his dream, he tries to buy it, but the owner refuses to sell it.
