Portugal, beginning of the new millennium. Liza is a young Russian immigrant married to a Portuguese man, with whom she has a child. Vitor, her husband, is in fact a petty crook who lives off scams and tricking old ladies. Mauro, the couple's son, is a strange child who has taken it upon himself not to speak. Besides all her domestic chores, Liza also has to take care of Vitor's grandmother, a bed-ridden, moribund, hundred-year-old lady who rejects any care that is given to her by Liza. Fernanda, Vitor's Spanish ex-wife, taking advantage of the wave of illegal immigrants into Portugal, turns up with a proposal for a false passports business. From then on, and to Liza's great despair, her house becomes a halfway house for countless immigrants of several differing nationalities and races, all looking for a better future. One of those to arrive is Andrei, a young Ukrainian orthopaedist who is wanted by the Russian mafia. Andrei ends up falling in love with Liza, who sees in him the opportunity to get out of that life. But things are not as straightforward as that...