When a construction worker falls to his death due to a deliberate laxness in safety regulations, the construction foreman's son-in-law attempts to get some compensation from the construction company for the man's widow. Instead, he runs into obstruction after obstruction. This impassioned indictment of the fraternity of greed won the Silver Bear Award (second prize) at the 1978 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Jorginho, his white friend Rico, Lici and Paulinho are homeless best friends living in a slum in a hill in Copacabana. They spend their hopeless life playing with kite; trying to survive getting food from the street market or the fishermen; learning how to pickpocket; working on the streets polishing shoes. Rico escaped from an institution in Caxambu that symbolizes hell on Earth for them. When he gets ill, he decides to return to the place because he does not want to die on the streets.