Karim Aïnouz

Following the revolution, Sergio, an upper middle-class Cuban from Havana finds himself alone when his wife and the rest of his family flee the island to settle down in Miami. Struggling to adjust to the new situation, to the seclusion and the new class relationships, he continues to live his life, goes through a few pathetic love stories, yet is unable to conceal the background that seems so much at odds with the new order.

In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Farrel asks the captain of the freighter he works on for permission to go ashore once they reach the port of Ushuaia, the southernmost town of Argentina. Farrel wants to return to his birthplace and see if his mother is still alive. For the past twenty years he has worked as a seaman. He drinks to oblivion, pays the women he sleeps with, has no friends. Having reached the cluster of snow-covered houses where he grew up, Farrel discovers his mother is indeed still living but someone else has become part of the family.

Nuria, 12, Fabio, 9, and their mother Amparo arrive in a small island in the middle of Amazonia, at the border of Brazil, Colombia and Peru. They ran away from the Colombian armed conflict in which their father disappeared. One day, he reappears in their new house. The family is haunted by this strange secret and discovers the island is peopled with ghosts.