As the summer of 1980 ends, 16 and 17 year old sisters Maria and Alda flee to Lisbon from Angola?s civil war. In the hands of fate, they must learn to live without money in a foreign city. On the edge of the law, the two have to grow up and become women. When the problems are already overwhelming, news comes that makes them unbearable. This blow, however, will give them the push to decide their futures: Alda is going to France and Maria back to Angola in search of her roots.

Two Angola, the colonial and the contemporary, spaced 60 years, share the curse of a mysterious island. In the past, the epicenter of the tragedy is an evil fortress, tomb of revolutionaries deported from the mainland. In the present, the building of a luxurious resort awakens the relentless jaw of justice. Soon after, workmen lacerated dead bodies, begin to appear. The horror spreads rapidly. Pedro Mbala is sent to the island to solve the problem. His target is a pack of stray dogs.

Prosecuting Attorney David Lunga's success is overshadowed by the terrifying secrets of Rosa, a beautiful but mysterious woman with whom he falls in love. What mysteries does she hide? As the macabre facts unravel, David comes face to face with his own demons and is driven to prove his innocence, recover his reputation and, above all, clear his own conscience.

Zézé Gamboa's sardonic historical drama follows a good-hearted, apolitical con man who, on the eve of Angolan independence in the mid-1970s, pulls off a massive swindle at the expense of the Portuguese colonial administration — and soon after finds himself hailed as a hero of the national liberation struggle.