The story of a young black man, Héracles, who after being released from a juvenile institution, tries to apply for his first honest job as a motorcycle delivery boy. To get the job, he has to perform 12 hard tasks in São Paulo.

Malu — a mercurial, unemployed actress living with her conservative mother in a precarious house in a Rio de Janeiro slum — tries to deal with her strained relationship with her own adult daughter while surviving on memories of her glorious artistic past.

Brazil 1970. Zé walks away from his upper-middle-class life and joins the resistance against the military regime. Together with his partner Bete, he abandons public life to fight the system, while also raising two kids. Based on the life of José Carlos Novais da Mata-Machado who died under torture at the age of 27, falsely accused of betraying his companions.

Young, intense and authentic, Dani just wants a normal life. However, since she was a child, she has been misaligned with her world.

Zé Rocha is a director trying to shoot his first film. He dreams of making a professional movie, and starts shooting in 35mm. But as his budget begins to fade, he changes to Black-and-White, then gradually down to 16mm, Super-8 and, in the end, to his despair, to the video format. With the help of Edna Marla, producer who is searching for the Holy Grail of a genuinely 100% Brazilian celluloid; Dona Martírio, his mother, former left-wing activist; Guará Rodrigues, an underground Brazilian movie star; and Lila Lessa, who stars in a 6 p.m. soap opera, they develop strategies and outlandish plans to win the insane battle of filmmaking in Brazil.