Estrela Novais

Guinea-Bissau: Portuguese Colony, year: 1973. An Ex-military returns to his hometown. Bringing back with him a vague sense of guilt due to the killing of two men (a soldier and a native) by his sounding of the alarm during one given night.

Six characters cross paths in Paris and Lisbon.

Dona Elvira promises to get a job from José through the typical Portuguese wedge. In parallel, they are bizarre aspects and eccentric figures of the city life, including the tragedy of the actress Maria Alves.

Thirty-something Vítor still lives with his mother, Fátima, in his grandmother Júlia’s apartment. Fátima is a hairdresser with a quiet disposition who, at night, fantasises about the policeman who has just moved in next door. By day, Vítor is a lowly employee on a TV show. But at night, he dons his neighbour’s uniform to win the favour and satisfy the desires of a boy he’s met online. In her retirement home, Júlia is unable to sleep at night and has long forgotten what drugs she is meant to be taking. She misses her dead husband, who manifests himself in the body of a living friend, and gets involved in her daily activities. Through these characters, Diogo Costa Amarante constructs a fascinating portrait of lives lived while desires remain unrealised.

Felizbela loves her husband with obsessive intensity, surrounding him with an explosive mix of passion and jealousy that will inevitably turn into hatred. To keep his attention, she stops at nothing, enduring suffering and humiliation in an attempt to win back his love. But Messias can barely conceal his growing disillusionment with life and his unspoken contempt for his wife. One day, Bárbara — Felizbela’s fragile and rebellious niece — bursts into their lives and upsets the balance: her cousin, her aunt, and above all Messias, who finally allows himself to be carried away by his emotions. Felizbela, however, refuses to give in — and will do whatever it takes to save her family.

Zeca was jailed for a crime he didn't participate, now he's free and while trying to make a new life he encounters a kid, surprisingly the boy is Ema's son, his long time lover.

Diogo Almada is a successful account manager at a telecommunications company who is struggling with serious stress and anxiety issues due to the constant state of pressure he lives in. His situation becomes worse when he suffers a stroke which puts him in hospital. There, doctors tell him that if he doesn't slow down things could become much worse for him in the future. He also meets the owner of a vegetables and herbs greenery in Beirais, a small village in the midlands, who is looking to sell it. Diogo then decides to buy him out and risk it as a farmer himself. He wants his girlfriend Teresa to come along with him, but she refuses to leave Lisbon due to her career and also because she doesn't want to give up her city comforts. But Diogo decides to move to Beirais anyway, where he is faced with an entirely different reality from what he’s used to.

Freedom is a state of mind... Carlos, José and Matias are three old friends who have known each other since childhood. José lives with his daughter, his son in law and his nine-year-old grandson Pedro. Being a grandfather is his only true source of happiness. Carlos is retired and spends most of his days tinkering. Matias, on the other hand, is a widower and lives alone and abandoned, as his son is living abroad. Each of them has a strong and contentious character of their own, but they are all joined by a deep friendship. When José is sent to a retirement home, Carlos and Matias set a plan to bust him out. They sneak into the retirement home and take him away from that depressing environment in which he was discarded. They know that they can’t come back home, so they decide to spend a while in Matias’ house up north. But, in the middle of their escape, they find José’s grandson snuck in there. Pedro doesn't want to leave his grandpa and insists on accompanying them in their journey.