Summer of 1982, a beach in the south of Portugal. Rui and his parents live closed in their worlds, blind to the failure that characterizes them as a family and condemns them to the malaise of survival.
 Rui will have school exams but he is only interested in music and in the exploration of imaginary worlds that he constantly sketches in drawings. Only Joana seems capable of pulling him out of his autism. The girl's vitality fascinates him.

Civil War

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.