Macário spends an entire train journey to the Algarve talking to a woman he does not know about the trials and tribulations of his love life: straight after starting his first job as a book keeper at his Uncle Francisco's shop in Lisbon he falls madly in love with a young blonde, who lives across the road. No sooner does he meet her than he straightaway wants to marry her. His uncle, totally opposed to the match, fires him and kicks him out of the house. Macário departs for Cape Verde where he makes his fortune. When he finally wins his uncle’s approval to marry his beloved, he discovers the “singularity” of his fiancée’s character.

38 years after the events in the Luis Buñuel classic Belle du jour, Henri Husson thinks he sees Séverine one night at a concert. He follows her and makes her face her past and then takes a slow revenge on her.

A meditation on civilization. July, 2001: friends wave as a cruise ship departs Lisbon for Mediterranean ports and the Indian Ocean. On board and on day trips in Marseilles, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, and Cairo, a professor tells her young daughter about myth, history, religion, and wars. Men approach her; she's cool, on her way to her husband in Bombay. After Cairo, for two evenings divided by a stop in Aden, the captain charms three successful, famous (and childless) women, who talk with wit and intellect, each understanding the others' native tongue, a European union. The captain asks mother and child to join them. He gives the girl a gift. Helena sings. Life can be sweet.

Having lost her place among the social elite, a widow remarries and starts a family.

A blind beggar is robbed of his chest of money. The theft leads to a dramatic situation in the street where he begs every day.

Ema is a very attractive but innocent girl, so pretty that cars crash in her presence. In her youth she marries Dr. Carlos Paiva, her father's friend, to whom she is not attracted. They move to the valley of Abraham. Carlos loves her, but decides to sleep in a separate room to avoid waking Ema when he has to return late at night. As time goes by she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage, so she finds a new lover.

In a mental institution the patients see themselves as people like Jesus, Lázaro, Marta, Maria, Adão, Eve, Sonia, Raskolnikov, Aliosha e Ivan Karamasov, a Philosopher, a Profet, Santa Teresa d'Avila, reciting the Divine Comedy.

Pedro is a young agricultural worker who gets caught in the middle of a fight between two families, kills a man and escapes to the capital. He can't find work,resorts to begging, but keeps his mountaineer pride. He starts a new life with a prostitute who is nice to him, but nothing works. He returns home, and alone, and now he finds life there is sad as well.

A portrait of Belarmino Fragoso, a veteran boxer in Lisbon nearing the end of his career. In a blend of reportage and re-enactment, the many vices of the once national featherweight champion are revealed against a background of the grim economics of boxing in 1960s Portugal.

António, a factory worker of immense musical talent, is discovered by a business man who launches him as a singer. Nevertheless, this changes the man's life for better and for worst.

The life of Fernando Farinha, from kid where he ran away to school - to sing the fado, and the condescension of the parents, although aspiring to have an "honest" job.

After a fatal crash involving her brother, Elsa tries to escape her corrupt & prejudiced background, making Francisco (the victim’s dad) – a wealthy family’s driver – resign himself with the unavoidable so as not to compromise his employer’s son, thus trying to gain something from the tragedy.