1974. Dictatorship proclaims that Brazil is enjoying an economic miracle but Ana, a black housewife living in the impoverished outskirts of São Paulo, each day has less feijões (the tropical beans of Brazilians’ everyday meals) left.
Out of the blue, Ana’s husband’s arrest by the regime leaves her alone and adrift with two kids to raise, and she has to find a way to scrape by. She works twenty hours a day, is
not able to see her children, and then she finds out that her daughter, trying to rescue them, is risking her integrity in an insalubrious slaughterhouse.
From the edge of the abyss, Ana joins nun Angelica to write a letter to the authorities telling them about the rampant inflation hitting staple foods while their wages are frozen. A month later, the letter explodes across the country with 1.300.000 signatures.
Ana finds herself leading a grassroots rebellion that will alter her sense of herself and shake the foundation of the dictatorship to its core, as the regime insists: they have all they need to eat.