In the year 1963, the promising rice harvest encourages the village of Xime to be optimistic. But lala, Raul and Bedan’s widowed father, is worried. Raul, his eldest son, studies with the priests in Bissau. Yet the colonial authorities are looking for him. Where is he then? Bedan, the youngest stayed in the village but contests the elder’s authority.
He is also secretly in love with the woman his father is to marry. Queba Mané, the village chief, incites lala to speed up the preparations for the wedding and, at the same time, orders Bedan to comply with the traditional rites of passage to adult life and initiation to love. Meanwhile the local Portuguese authorities are in complete disarray. Cunha, the administrator of the village, can feel something serious is in store despite the constant servility of his entourage. When Raul goes back to the village, the pace of events quickens and Xime is thrown into violence, with every man forced to choose his camp…
