Maria Auxiliadora is a 24 year-old woman very poor, that she lives Joana, her 7 year-old daughter close to. Needing go look for the result of Joana's exam in the hospital, Maria asks the priest of the local church that takes care of her to return. In spite of Joana's insistence to go with the mother Maria insists that she is with the priest, because she distrusts that her daughter suffers of a serious disease. To entertain the girl while it awaits the mother's return, the priest decides to tell her a mother's history that dedicated her life to the son: Mary, mother of Jesus Christ.

A family man cannot resist temptation and betrays his wife. The problem is, he didn't expect that one night of pain and pleasure could change the whole course of his life.

Widowed and broke Finnish businessman Kari takes his two teenage daughters with him to Brazil. A bush pilot introduces him to the idea of gold mining in the jungle, but a beautiful and educated local woman warns him about the possible consequences to the rain forest. Kari has mixed feelings about the project, until an accident puts him in the care of a local Indian tribe.

Fausta is a survivor who dreams of building a house on land she's buying on the installment plan. Meanwhile she lives in a one-room tin-roofed hovel with her idle husband, João, and she works as a maid. Through it all she's a scourge, arguing, jeering and being jeered, but also displaying the spirit and energy of her idol, Tina Turner.

The relationship among three friendly couples turns upside down when two of the men get a job on TV. Their girlfriends leave them, looking for more action in their lives.

Mid-1970s. When the military regime's "economic miracle" and the victory of the Brazilian football team on the World Cup serve as a distraction for the persecution of opposition leaders by the political police of the dictatorship. Under this context, Jofre Godoi da Fonseca, an alienated middle-class man, is mistaken for Sarmento, a political activist he met at an airport prior to his assassination. He is then arrested for being "subversive".

Young robber, son of a prostitute who had killed herself, gets involved with two police informers, who force him to share the loot he gets.