Bach in Brazil

Monday, 30th of May. 1983. Adonias classmates pay attention to class while he draws an imaginary football match. While he dives into his imagination, narrating the game, on the other side of town, José walks down the street and notices he's being followed by a motorcycle. He walks into a pharmacy to throw them off, but the vehicle with the two men stops in front of the building. One man shoots José twice, seriously injuring him. At this moment Adonias shouts "Goooal!". The teacher sweetly scolds him and tells him he'll have to turn in a free theme essay on Friday. Adonias goes out of class worried. Still in school, the boy suffers bullying from Ludo, a bigger boy, son of a military family. The conflict occurs because of his parents leftist leaning beliefs, considered to be subversive by the defenders of military dictatorship. Arriving home, where he lives with his mother, Vanete, his father, Silvestre, his grandmother, Aracy, his brother Pedro, and his uncle, José, the family receives the news of the attack at the pharmacy. José is in the hospital in critical condition. From that point on, the joyous atmosphere that characterized the life of the cast, turns into sentiments of revolt and fear, in a period of Brazilian history marked by public pressure for the end of military dictatorship, with movements in favor of direct elections and broad amnesty for prosecuted political exiles, among them José, ex-member of the Dissent of Guanabara and participant in the rapture of the American ambassador Charles Elbrick, in 1969. Adonias is directly influenced by the events and his behavior with his classmates, friends, and family, changes. His uncle's history intrigues him, causing him to ask his grandmother, mother, and father, to tell him more about his uncle's life, triggering a second story line in flashback, revealing fragments of José's childhood in Teresina, adolescence in Salvador and his adult life in Rio de Janeiro. And it was in Rio, where he fell in love with the city's artistic avant-garde, and in Brasilia, when the armed forces started the coup that displaced Jango. Many of José's experiences are accompanied by the poet Torquato Neto, his friend and contemporary. The flashback segments intersperse the main plot, which becomes tense with the increasing violence Adonias suffers from Ludo, the conniving posture of the school's principal, who persecutes the boy for what she considers to be a disruptive behavior, and the protagonist's internal conflict related to his uncle Josés situation, consequent family issues, and on top of all that, the "marvelous" essay, given by his teacher Adriana... Come Friday. Adonias resolves his conflicts at school, however, he receives some sad news... But in the end, hope resurfaces!