On Carnival's eve, girl dreams of a man to stay with her during these four days. She meets a photographer, with whom she has an affair.

In a financially troubled farm in the 1930's, its depraved owners become attracted to their new handsome and young handyman.

The story of the University of Brasília, since it was only a project in Darcy Ribeiro's head until the fateful events in August 1968 when its campus was invaded by the police, during the military dictatorship, thus putting an end to its independence.

After a life of richness, a conservative industrialist blames himself for abandoning his youth's left values. In existential misery, he keeps looking for a possible personal redemption after a foreign company buys his business. His life breaks into pieces.

Police investigator Galvão is pursuing two trails, one professional and one personal. While he looks for a serial killer, he also searches for his estranged daughter, Sandra, whom he kicked out of the house. Lives intersect when the serial killer, Toninho, befriends Sandra, now an exotic dancer and prostitute living and working in the seamy underside of late 1970s Rio.

Against all advice, a destitute Brazilian old man marries a nineteen-year-old girl. Because he can’t give her any children, he moves to the interior to make money, so she will at least have a good life. When he returns, he is told she has a three-year-old daughter. He buys himself a knife.