Helen lives in a cortiço with her grandmother, Mrs. Graça, who supports the family with informal jobs, such as selling skewers. Still very naive, her biggest concern is buying her grandmother a birthday present: a makeup kit. The girl is going to bend over backwards to get the money and her search will reveal the daily life of those living in tenements, outlining a collective story from the network of relations that the girl establishes.

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

A reporter goes out to investigate a suicide.