When a man's best friend is shot in cold blood by two corrupt policemen, he must track down the only eyewitnesses, who have deported to Mali.

Lisbon, 1989. A middle-aged poor man, tormented by an illness, lives in a cheap room in a family boarding house, in the old section of the city's waterfront.

After a suicidal teenage girl gives birth, she misguidedly entrusts her baby’s safety to the troubled, deadbeat father, whose violent actions take the viewer on a tour of the foreboding, crumbling shantytown in which they live.

The film tells a story of Mariana, a nurse who leaves Lisbon to accompany an immigrant worker in a comatose sleep on his trip home to Cape Verde. The devoted Portuguese nurse took a journey only to find herself lost in abstract drama.