Life in an exclusive neighborhood in the Brazilian town of Recife follows its own steady course: Bia suffers from severe insomnia caused by her neighbors’ dog, and tries to silence it by any means possible, João falls in love with a girl he knows nothing about, while Dinho is the scare of all the other residents’ cars, and their respective CD players. Above all, the fatherly figure of Claudio, the master without a crown of the neighborhood. The relative equilibrium of it all is blown into pieces when the employees of a private security firm offer their services. Little by little, secrets old and new are revealed. The sins of post-colonial Brazil are finally accounted for, which is by no means one and the same thing with justice being made. Brazil’s official proposal for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2014 Academy Awards.
