The fairy tale story of Maria da Graça, a small town girl with big time dreams of becoming a singer, who moves to Rio de Janeiro to pursue her ambitions.
The dictator of a small Caribbean island receives the New York Times daily, sent by a nephew. Through the newspaper, he gets in touch with the world. Guerrilla groups try to neutralize this information system.
Glorinha, a middle-class 15 year old girl, always thought her mother Judite had killed herself, and that her father Gilberto has gone crazy as result. Her friend Nair takes her to a high-class bordello, where she wants to work. When uncle Raul, who raised her, discovers her prostitution, he decides to finally tell her all the truth about her parents' story.
The youngest daughter of a rich man has been raped by five black men in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, and her father arranges her marriage to one of his employees in order to save the family’s honor.
After years lost in a ingrate job, Hugo decides to take a drastic measure: to compensate for the time he lost, he will rob the bank in which he worked all his life. Everything goes well in the execution of the plan, but the appearance of the firm's cleaner can put everything to waste.