When bandits take the town of Sertânia, Antão gets shot, arrested, and left to die. Bleeding out, Antão's delirious mind begins to recall the events that led up to the incident through a sequence of increasingly unreliable fever dreams.

In a dystopian Bahia where the entire population is infertile and governed by a populist dictatorial regime, a couple cannot reach a consensus on the choice of their daughter's name, exposing structural problems in marriage and society.