In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood, while José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer diving into a dangerous life of crime.

In Nordestina, a small town lost in the Brazilian badlands, young Karina dreams of becoming an actress and leaving to explore the world. Before losing his love, Dona Nazaré’s son, Antônio, takes the first step in a kamikaze crusade to bring the world to Karina. For that, Antônio leaves town and announces, in a TV show that he will set off on a sensational adventure: a trip into the future, starting from Nordestina’s square. A story where dreams contradict reality, geographical and political conditions threaten to block life, and love plays the part of the transforming element.