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.

Alice dos Anjos is a smart girl who lives in the northeastern hinterland, and who, after running after a running black goat, is transported to a magical place, full of crazy characters. She finds herself, then, in the middle of a war against an influential colonel who wants to discard as traditional communities' land to build a hydroelectric plant. As Alice joins her friends to fight an oppression, she finds herself on a journey of self-knowledge and social awareness.