The Night of the Pencils was a series of kidnappings and forced disappearances, followed by the torture, rape, and murder of a number of young students during the last Argentine dictatorship (known as the National Reorganization Process). The kidnappings took place over the course of several days beginning on September 16, 1976.

In 1989, the schizophrenic son of a serial killer is remanded to house arrest after attacking a man, but when his allegedly-slain father reappears to him and threatens to resume killing, he must grapple with the question of what is real and how he will survive.

When two American girls on a bike trip in a remote part of Argentina split up and one of them goes missing, the other must find her before her worst fears are realized.