A group of left-wing intellectuals take over a building with the purpose of forming a Ministry of Culture, however, the workers oppose the takeover. Intellectuals and workers establish a coexistence pact while waiting for Godoy, a union boss. After conflicts over ideological differences about culture, the takeover dissolves, just when Godoy appears with a totally elitist and apolitical discourse.

The film captures the activities of the inhabitants in the countryside, in southern Chile, and the CORA (Corporation for Agrarian Reform). Although the action was filmed in four days and four nights in 1971, the movie was only finished in France in 1973, after the military coup.

A former public-services worker wants to return to his job. In the attempt, he meets wandering people, who seek "parallel ways" of survival in a chaotic socio-political context in Chile, after the 1973 Coup d'état .

A young working class girl falls in love with an upper class boy who is part of the plot to assassinate General Schneider, head of the Chilean Army. The film was shot in 1973 over six weeks with a budget of $170,000. As a result of the 1973 Chilean coup d'état and military dictatorship (1973–1990), the film was presumed lost for many years and not released until 1992.

Four drunken literary bohemians write a short story about a pact with the Devil just as that very story is happening to them.