Marajo, where the Amazon flows into the sea, is where thirteen-year-old Marcielle lives with her family. She goes to school, plays with her siblings, helps out her parents - she is slowly growing up. But she feels that this is increasingly becoming a burden, a secret burden that generations of women seem to carry here. Marcielle wants to leave: the boats passing by her home promise freedom in a different, better world. But at what price?Fiercely determined to change her fate, Marcielle decides to fight back against the violent system that rules her family and the women of her community.

Manas is the cinematic result of ten years of intensive research in the Amazon in close cooperation with the local population.