A humble farmer aspiring for richness leaves his land to become a prospector. He finds a precious gem and hides it from his employer, for which he ends up beaten and tortured. After being released, he kills the perpetrators and flees to the big city. There he finds some criminals who will end up transforming him into the most powerful drug dealer and pimp of the underworld.
Silvia, whose lover is a talking horse, is threatened by Scipio, her uncle and tutor, and by Marcus and Furius, advisers to the monarch, who aim to overthrow the daughter of the former Roman emperor. Scipio, as a strategy, wants to marry her to Marcus, but she refuses. The advisers, on the other hand, are simultaneously planning a coup against Scipio.
Wannabe gangster Miguel Metralha becomes editor of a fading pornographic magazine that faces difficulties with the savage competition of similar imported magazines. His fresh ideas reshape the magazine as a whole, which is good for business, but upset the magazine's owner, a rich and powerful woman.
A woman who makes her living as a prostitute must decide her fate between two totally different men.
On the banks of São Paulo's Rio Tietê, a poignant tale unfolds, featuring a tapestry of characters existing on the fringes of society. Prostitutes, a pimp, a mentally disabled man, and others marginalized by fate lead lives mired in hopelessness, devoid of any prospect. Trapped in the relentless cycle of their ordinary yet despairing existence, they yearn for release, anticipating the embrace of death as their only salvation—a collective passage onto the harrowing vessel of damnation.