Photographed by renowned Cinema Novo cinematographer (/Sergio Ricardo’s brother) Dib Lutfi & edited by filmmaker Ruy Guerra, Ricardo's debut feature blends aspects of Italian neorealism, French New Wave, and Cinema Novo as it studies in parallel the lives of two young men from Rio de Janeiro, one a shoeshine boy who is saving up money to buy a bike and win over a girl and & the other, a worker who fights for better working conditions as he tries to stop his wife from performing a risky abortion.