In a desperate attempt to reach Europe and crouched before an airstrip in Cameroon, a six-year-old boy and his older sister wait to sneak into the holds of an airplane. Not too far away, an environmental activist contemplates the terrible image of an elephant, dead and fangless. Not only do you have to fight against poaching, but you will also have to meet the problems of your newly arrived daughter from Spain. Thousands of kilometers to the north, in Melilla, a group of civil guards prepare to face the furious crowd of sub-Saharan people who have begun the assault on the fence. Three stories linked by a central theme, in which none of its protagonists know that their destinies are doomed to cross and that their lives will no longer be the same.
Barcelona, 1980s: in a tough urban neighbourhood inhabited by survivors and ruled by ex-legionnaires Gandhi, Fontán and Andrade - who are fighting a war for control of the streets - Nen and his friends Palito, Topo and Tostao dream of making it big in the world of rumba. But Nen discovers why his father, El Guacho - of whom all Nen has left is the memory of his brilliance as a rumba singer - disappeared many years earlier. He learns how the relationship between his mother, Chata, and Ghandi, leader of the neighbourhood, was connected to his father's disappearance, and so Nen is forced to balance his own desire for vengeance with his longing to triumph.
Virtu and Ramon have tried to get children for a long time without success and Virtu begins to get tired of all the gynecological tests she is forced to go through. Finally, when it turns out that Ramon is sterile, Virtu suggests that they adopt, but Ramon wants a son of his own flesh and blood. As if the situation was not strained enough, Ramon's father appears after several years in prison and once again wants to become part of Ramon's life.
In the early 70s, a rather backwards young soldier with serious family problems finds himself stationed in a small village in Spain's Levante. Secretly in love with a young village girl, Pere slips into her room one night. When he is discovered, the soldier reacts with spontaneous violence, creating an embarrassing problem for the military that the brass decide to handle--expeditiously-- as "an internal affair."