João Carlos Martins was a child with serious health problems. Because of this, he had a reclusive childhood. But one day, the piano came into his life. He arises as a stubborn boy who, in a few years turns into one of the biggest promises of the world classical music.

Diego is a film director who, when he is told that he has a malignant disease which could be fatal, marries his girlfriend of many years, says goodbye to his friends and begins a routine of long days of treatment in hospital. While learning to live with the pain and also conversing with death, he meets a Hindu boy who is a fellow patient and who becomes his friend. But one day the boy disappears. Diego is discharged, but his life has changed forever. His marriage fails and, living alone, he begins to wonder whether he may in fact be dying and no one has told him. He tries to find out what happened to his Hindu friend, and eventually meets another woman.

The sierras of southern Brazil, 1963. The son of an French man and a Brazilian woman, Tony is a young man with a profound love of cinema and poetry. After graduating from college he returns to his small town in rural Brazil, to find out that his father had left for good, back to France. Tony then looks for the company of his fathers friends in search of information and references of a lost male role-model. He becomes a school teacher and a male figure to kids, in an attempt to provide them with something he lacks himself. A series of developments lead him to a surprising final lead on his fathers' whereabouts and reasons for leaving.

The life of Reno, an artist who lives and works in an old building in the Recife neighborhood that is rapidly transforming. His inspiration and tools have been found in the beautiful Capibaribe River which is filled with pollution and death.

Ophelia is a 20-year-old girl who lives with her mother and grew up without a father. She suspects that he is Tedesco, a German artist who has just returned to Brazil. Determined to find him, she sends a letter notifying him of her arrival and that she will swim to him from the Santos bridge. Upon learning of the imminent arrival, Tedesco asks Smutter, his great friend, to start following her closely.