In the beginning of the 20th Century, in the Northeast of Brazil, one of the first Brazilian industrialists is persecuted because he refuses to sell his business to a British company.

During the Carnival, in Niterói, the son of a Lira do Delírio nightclub dancer is kidnapped. With the help of a journalist friend, she dives into Rio de Janeiro's underworld and meet all kind of criminals. She also goes back in time, to a past carnival, where she thinks she might pin-point the culprit among a group of people.

At the age of 93, shortly before her death, Anésia Pinheiro Machado takes the viewer on a journey through the 20th century, showing how she fell in love with aviation and the difficulties she had to manage to infiltrate a newborn environment and until then dominated by men. Anésia, in the interviews recorded for the film, recounts her experiences as one of the pioneers in aviation.

An overlook at the southern Rio de Janeiro neighborhoods, from the perspective of one of its most well-known places: Jardim de Alah, a group of squares on the middle of neighborhoods Ipanema and Leblon. There, people of different social classes interact together - workers who live in the Cruzada de São Sebastião building and the local bourgeois class who live in fancy condos. There, the rich and the poor unite in the same spirit.

Brenan arrives at Yegen on foot, interrupting the funeral held for the daughter of the local cacique. He collapses from dysentery and soon learns that the local cacique, Don Fernando, is leaving for Granada with his wife. Brenan rents Fernando’s house for a year and soon enlists the services of María as housekeeper and cook and becomes friends with a local man named Paco. Brenan spends most of his time reading, walking, and trying to write poetry.His friends Dora Carrington, Lytton Strachey (who is ill), and Ralph Partridge visit for a couple of days. Brenan, who has been maintaining a correspondence with Carrington, learns during the visit that Partridge and Carrington are engaged. He is crushed, as he had been in love with Carrington.