André (Curado Ribeiro), is a son of a wealthy family who meets a girl called Luisinha (Milu). Luisinha lives at a small pension house with Rita (Maria Olguim) and Januário (João Silva), who are as parents to her, and with mr. Simplício Costa (António Silva), better known as Costa do Castelo, a lazy but highly talented guitar player who together with (Hermínia Silva) reaches success.

It is the story of two men in love with the same woman and fighting each other in and out of the arenas of bulls.

Natal 71 is the name of a record given to the soldiers of the portuguese colonies overseas for Christmas 1971. Niassa's Songbook is the title of an audiotape illegally recorded by soldiers during the war years, in Mozambique. They are memories from a country which was shut from the rest of the world, poor and ignorant, laid to sleep by a stale and primitive propaganda which tried to hide all the conflicts from us and kept us from thinking and recognising the repressive nature of the regime we lived in.

Gracinda is a young laundress who works with Uncle Jacinto, but life hasn't been going well for them. Therefore, she decides to go to the city to convince Chico, her cousin with whom she has fallen in love, to return to the village to help on the business...

After the brother's death by a bull, the "Bezoiro", Manuel refuses to succeed him as mayoral, the very day he marries Maria Loba.