Plot
In 1977, during the political turmoil of the Brazilian military dictatorship, former researcher Armando travels during the carnival holiday to Recife, where his young son Fernando has been living with his in-laws since the death of Armando's wife, Fátima. He arrives at a refuge operated by former anarcho-communist Dona Sebastiana, where he adopts the name Marcelo and befriends other political dissidents including Claudia, Haroldo and Angolan Civil War refugees Thereza Vitória and Antonio. Meanwhile, corrupt Civil Police chief Euclides and his sons Sergio and Arlindo are called in during the holiday to investigate a severed human leg that has been found inside a captured shark.
Armando is placed by his dissident network in a job at the city's identity card office under the alias "Marcelo", where he has a chance encounter with Euclides, who offers him his friendship and protection. Armando is visibly annoyed by Euclides's arrogant behaviour, which includes harassing Hans, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who is mistakenly assumed to be a Nazi fugitive. Armando's job also affords him the opportunity to search for files on his late mother, of whom he has few memories. Meanwhile, in São Paulo, hitmen Bobbi and Augusto are hired by former Eletrobras executive director Henrique Ghirotti to kill Armando, against whom he has a political and personal vendetta.
Armando meets Elza, the leader of a political resistance movement in the Brazilian northeast, at the Cinema São Luiz, where his father-in-law Sr. Alexandre works as a projectionist. Recording a testimony about Ghirotti's corrupt activities, Armando recounts a dinner he attended with Fátima that ended in a physical altercation with Ghirotti and his son, following remarks on the couple's lower socioeconomic class and supposed communist sympathies. Elza informs Armando that a contract killing has been ordered and instructs him to flee the country. Sergio and Arlindo dispose of the human leg in the Capibaribe River, where it suddenly revives and attacks gay men cruising in a public park at night; the story, presumably a newspaper cover-up for the political corruption and violence during the carnival week, creates a public frenzy. Augusto and Bobbi hire a local impoverished gunman, Vilmar, to find Armando. Anticipating a departure, Armando bids farewell to Dona Sebastiana and the other refugees.
The following day, Armando's cover is blown after Bobbi surveils Sr. Alexandre. Vilmar identifies Armando but fails to kill him, shooting Arlindo and a fellow police officer. Bobbi, watching from afar, chases a bleeding Vilmar through Recife's city centre and is later killed by Vilmar in a barbershop.
In the present day, history student Flavia researches Elza's resistance network through audio recordings and newspaper archives, learning that Armando was murdered and framed as a corrupt professor. Travelling to Recife, Flavia meets with Fernando, now a middle-aged doctor, who agrees to be interviewed after Flavia donates blood. The pair discuss Armando's political past and subsequent assassination, and the identity of Armando's mother "India". Fernando states he does not have a single memory of his father, but fondly recalls watching Jaws with his grandfather at a cinema which has since become the blood bank where he works.
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