In an empty city, scorched by the sun, the young and old confuse the fever of sunstroke with the delicate birth of passion. Like ghosts, they hover around buildings and endless flatlands in search of the ever elusive love. Inspired by 19th century Russian short stories, the plots weave and unravel together in the improbable city of Brasilia – a distorted mirror-image of the Soviet utopia – located in the heart of the Brazilian desert.

A tale of obsessive love. The bookstore owner is soon entangled in Severina's mystery: seductive and enigmatic, of uncertain nationality, she steals books. As in a dream, the disoriented man finds that the thin border between rational and irrational is no longer reliable.