On January 22, 1961, a group of Portuguese and Spanish opposition movement members seized control of the Santa Maria, a Portuguese luxury cruise liner, an operation devised by Henrique Galvão to expose the Government of Portugal as a dictatorship.

Madalena is a seven-year-old girl who has to draw the nativity scene. When she lists the characters in the biblical scene, she is confronted with a surprise: God, the father of Jesus, is not included in the scene. The girl is reluctant to accept this new information, but after considering the facts, she eventually comes to a curious conclusion.

Anna is a psychologist undertaking research about famous suicidal women. She takes a specific interest in the case of Antonieta Rivas Mercado, who killed herself in 1931 in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris.