Zézé Gamboa's sardonic historical drama follows a good-hearted, apolitical con man who, on the eve of Angolan independence in the mid-1970s, pulls off a massive swindle at the expense of the Portuguese colonial administration — and soon after finds himself hailed as a hero of the national liberation struggle.
Lourenço is the son of Francisco Figueiredo, a soccer coach in the beginning of a very promising career. Everything goes well: Francisco's team is in the Portuguese Cup final and Lourenço is going to be class valedictorian in a very prestigious private high school. But everything starts to collapse. Francisco is fired and Lourenço must transfer to a public high school whose students are predominantly from a ghetto near Lisbon. While Lourenço is fighting to fit into a new and harsh reality, he also helps his father find his lost dignity. Hope is a strange place.
