After being released from prison, Dr. Nise da Silveira is back at work in a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Rio de Janeirom where she refuses to employ the new and violent electroshock in the treatment of schizophrenics. Ridiculed by doctors, she is forced to take on the abandoned Sector for Occupational Therapy, where she would start a revolution through paintings, animals and love.

Adapted from his autobiography, the film recounts the story of Hiroito, The King of Boca do Lixo (a region in downtown São Paulo of the fifties where various nightclubs, strip joints, prostitution, bars, and drugs can be found). Hiroito was a well born bohemian and at the age of 21 was accused for the murder of his father, who was violently stabbed over 40 times with a razor. Hiroito was not charged, however two months after the death of his father, Hiroito bought two guns and moved to Boca do Lixo and became one of the most dangerous criminals of the region. Written by Anonymous

In the slum in Morro da Sinuca, a couple of days before turning eighteen year-old, Laranjinha tells his best friend and also orphan Acerola that he misses his unknown father. Acerola decides to help his needy friend to find his father and they discover that he is in prison convicted for killing a man during a robbery and near to be released on parole. Meanwhile, Acerola's wife and babysitter Cris is invited to work in São Paulo and she sees the chance to raise money to buy a house of her own; she tells Acerola that he must take care of their son Clayton alone for one year. When the owner of the hill and Laranjinha's cousin Madrugadão is betrayed by his right-hand Nefasto, he is expelled from the slum and Laranjinha and Acerola have also to leave the hill. While Madrugadão plots a plan to invade and recover the hill with the support of the gang of the drug lord from Morro do Careca, Acerola and Laranjinha unravel the past of their fathers. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil