A married, middle-aged well-known biochemist and university teacher Augusto, leaves his wife, his job and the comfort of his life to go after Marlene, a 14-year-old teenager with extraordinary beauty who burst into his life unexpectedly. One day, Marlene is taken from the custody of Augustus by Genaro, a psychotic sailor, who seduces and finally kidnaps her by taking to the ominous port of Tampico, where Augustus will seek her to try to free her, not without giving her life to pain and atonement, undergoing a deep personal transformation.
After witnessing the arrest of her father for publishing "subversive" material against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, Valentina escapes taking a sack of gold coins with her in order to hand it over to rebel Francisco I. Madero, who is in San Antonio, Texas. That is how Valentina begins a long journey as a member of a traveling circus, where she finds love next to Victor, who, fascinated by the cinematographer, films everything that occurs before his eyes, in times of great political turbulence.