The true story of João Guilherme Estrella ("Johnny"), a young middle-class bon vivant who became a big-time cocaine dealer in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1990s.

Maria Auxiliadora is a 24 year-old woman very poor, that she lives Joana, her 7 year-old daughter close to. Needing go look for the result of Joana's exam in the hospital, Maria asks the priest of the local church that takes care of her to return. In spite of Joana's insistence to go with the mother Maria insists that she is with the priest, because she distrusts that her daughter suffers of a serious disease. To entertain the girl while it awaits the mother's return, the priest decides to tell her a mother's history that dedicated her life to the son: Mary, mother of Jesus Christ.