A Panamanian fashion designer living in the US, who is embarrassed about her culture, is forced to bring her dad with dementia (who is convinced that he is still in Panama) to her most important exhibition.

The stories of a Panamanian officer who feels betrayed by his superiors, of a young man from the neighborhood trying to prevent his friends from going out to fight, of a fisherman going through a thousand adventures trying to bury his compadre, of an imprisoned American businessman for conspiring as a CIA agent against the dictatorship and an alcoholic prostitute who cannot escape her past ... all in the middle of the Christmas preparations, just as the US invasion of Panama begins.