When a young boy witnesses his mother's accidental death, a lonely retired school-teacher reluctantly takes the child under her wing.

A woman and her mother are sent to an island and spend almost 60 years trying to leave it. Follow three generations of the woman's family as they all try and find happiness on a lagoon surrounded by shifting dunes.

In 1936 Portugal, the opulent Vidago Palace hotel is a haven for Europe's elite from the Spanish Civil War erupting across the border. Beautiful young aristocrat Carlota arrives at the resort to plan her wedding to the wealthy Cesar, which will save her family from bankruptcy. But her heart is preoccupied with thoughts of Pedro, the handsome son of the hotel's concierge.

Two families, who both grow sugar cane, have been squabbling over the ownership of a piece of land for years. The disagreement then turned violent. The Breveses, a much smaller family, have been suffering more than their rivals and a steady drop in sugar prices has also left the family with little but their pride. When the eldest son of the Breves family is killed, his father orders his next-oldest son to kill one of the Ferreira boys. He finds himself...

Cuca's cozy rural life in Brazil is shattered when his father leaves for the city. Determined to reunite his family, he embarks on a journey into civilization, where despite the harsh life and industrialized landscape, he finds that peoples' hearts continue to beat together in song.

Mauro is a 12-year-old boy, who is left to fend for himself when his parents 'go on vacation' during the Communist regime in 1970's Brazil. The culturally diverse community of São Paulo unites to watch Péle lead his country in winning the World Cup of soccer.

The story centers on Val, a hard-working live-in housekeeper in modern-day São Paulo. Val is perfectly content to take care of every one of her wealthy employers' needs, from cooking and cleaning to being a surrogate mother to their teenage son, who she has raised since he was a toddler. But when Val's estranged daughter Jessica shows up, the unspoken but intrinsic class barriers that exist within the home are thrown into disarray.

God decides to take a vacation - but, first, He has to find a saint who can rule the universe while He's away. For that, he goes to Brazil's northeast, where He believes there's a very good man for the job - during his mission, he becomes friend of a very smart young man, Taoca.

While spending summer vacation with her family on the idyllic southeast coast of Brazil, fourteen-year-old Filipa discovers that her father, a famous author, is betraying her mother by dallying with a beautiful young American woman. Wrestling with the truth, Filipa will soon discover that her father's infidelity is only the first of many dark secrets that lurk beneath the surface of her seemingly perfect family.

Built in the 1960s, Cidade de Deus (City of God) is a sprawling housing project built to keep the poor as far as possible from Rio's glamorous beaches and resorts. By the 1980s, it has degenerated into a war zone so dangerous that visitors from outside risk being shot to death on sight, a poisonous stew of poverty, drugs, and crime. "If you run away, they get you, and if you stay, they get you, too, " says Rocket, who wants to be a photographer. Rocket's...