Alice, a young music lover, and her best friend Socrates, go on a road trip, accompanied by Tinho, a former rocker, to play at the world's largest cover band festival.
In May 1993, Brazil experienced one of the worst economic crises in its history. The government then decides to set up a real task force to solve the problem. Confined to a bunker as a way of shielding the operations of growing political pressures, the special economic team will have to do its best to reach agreement and create the Plano Real.
A small group of artists travels the Brazilian backlands presenting a show. Upon arriving in a small village, they find an abandoned city with houses, a church, and a fountain spouting clean water, like a miracle of a biblical desert. Tired of and battered by their life as wanderers, the artists decide to settle in the village and start a new community, assigning themselves different roles from those they have played throughout their lives. This new arrangement, however, will reveal these artists the worst vices of the civilian life.
Diego is a film director who, when he is told that he has a malignant disease which could be fatal, marries his girlfriend of many years, says goodbye to his friends and begins a routine of long days of treatment in hospital. While learning to live with the pain and also conversing with death, he meets a Hindu boy who is a fellow patient and who becomes his friend. But one day the boy disappears. Diego is discharged, but his life has changed forever. His marriage fails and, living alone, he begins to wonder whether he may in fact be dying and no one has told him. He tries to find out what happened to his Hindu friend, and eventually meets another woman.
Manuel is a crafty cowboy and swindler who lives to serve his two great loves – his fiancée Das Dô, and his mule Beija-fulô – and his business of selling unsound horses to suckers. The killer Targino arrives in town looking for a horse. Thinking that he is being clever, Manuel sells a sick horse to the assassin. Targino swears that he is going to kill Manuel, and dishonor Das Dô’s reputation after he’s dead. Under pressure, Manuel calls on the magic of Toniquinho das Pedras to protect his body. However, the witchdoctor demands the mule Beija-fulô as payment. Manuel, sees himself in the dilemma between having to choose between his fiancée Das Dô, and the mule, Beija-fulô.
Ciba (Rodrigo Santoro) is an independent investigator who works together with the police. A typical fallible hero who struggles with strong personal issues, while preventing crime and injustice. His partner, Deputy Ulisses (Luis Miranda), is a well-meaning professional who recognizes the difficulty in securing his function using only common artifacts, and Ciba's unofficial contact is of utmost importance for the progress of his investigations.
In an empty city, scorched by the sun, the young and old confuse the fever of sunstroke with the delicate birth of passion. Like ghosts, they hover around buildings and endless flatlands in search of the ever elusive love. Inspired by 19th century Russian short stories, the plots weave and unravel together in the improbable city of Brasilia – a distorted mirror-image of the Soviet utopia – located in the heart of the Brazilian desert.
The great battles are the backdrop for the unfolding of the Egyptian Queen's personal life. The strategy of Cleopatra is to seduce the Roman General Julius Caesar and Mark Antony to protect their civilization.
Based upon the true story of Olga Benário, the German-born wife of Brazilian communist leader Luís Carlos Prestes. During the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas (1930-1945) she was arrested and sent to Nazi Germany, where she was put to death in a concentration camp. After World War II began, Vargas decided to uphold the Allies.
After losing her job, an unstable woman sinks further and further into a violent fantasy world.
Poet Cruz e Souza was a black man, born in the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil, where the majority of the population are blonde. He was also poor and fell a prey to the racism of his time. Died young, at 37, and dragged the great love of his life, Gavíria, into a path of great suffering.