Luís Santos

In Portugal, in the 60s, the corpse of a man appears on Dog's Beach. The corpse is identified as the major Dantas, a man wanted by authorities after his escape from a military prison where he was awaiting trial for insurrection.

Portugal 1997. A nuclear accident left the the country without energy and divided between zones, some of them interdicted because of the contamination. The economic crisis is dramatic and unemployment is almost total.

In an imaginary future, Portugal consists of an association of states - North and South - with zones of specific influence. City under vigilance, Lisbon is inhabited by a repressed and militarized population. Maria and António stand out in this city and surrender themselves to a submersive love. 1978

An arms smuggler organization uses a pirate television station to spread dissention among representatives in an international conference in Portugal. A French diplomat travels to Macao, hoping to locate a sexy spy who had stayed in Lisbon.

The lone survivor of a deadly ambush against him and his team, a narcotics agent swears to avenge the deaths of his friends and fellow officers.

Old people tend to be kept apart, even humiliated by the new generations. The stories and different destinies of three old persons are linked together, and the realism of it imposes itself on us.

The young girl, Antónia Margarida Castelo Branco, is handed over by her mother to Brás Telles de Meneses because of the obscure interests between rural aristocratic families in the North. Brás is a ruined man, a bohemian with a reputation for violence and erratic behaviour. Antonia’s fortune is the first sacrifice made by the young wife. Fascinated by the man who humiliates and ill-treats her, she follows him in a pilgrimage to increasingly barren lands, to increasingly less hospitable houses.

Nino, tough but sickly, and his older brother Vicente live in the country with their father. After their father disappears ― we’re never sure why ― murder is suggested. Vicente brings his girlfriend to the house, and a different kind of family is established as the three youngsters grow fiercely protective of each other. But their uncle grows suspicious about the fate of the missing father and forcibly kidnaps Nino, taking him away to the city and leaving Vicente to locate him there.