A child suffering from Fallot syndrome will inevitably die on Christmas eve. A sensationalist journalist takes advantage of his condition and makes him a celebrity, but the matter gets complicated when the inevitable day arrives and nothing happens.

Niki and his friends are members of the marginalised underclass living on the outskirts of Santiago. During Chile's transition from dictatorship to democracy (1988-1990), they forge a path from drug- and drink-fuelled nihilism and petty crime into the world of market-driven illegality and Niki begins a seemingly predestined relationship with the middle-class "loca", Manuela. Memorable episodes and characters, quotable dialogue and a mix of earthy national portrait and surrealistic flourish make this one of the key Chilean films of the Nineties.

The businessman who sends the first Chilean astronaut into outer space can't quite come up with the money to bring the adventurer back.