Little seems unusual in an unprepossessing, middle-class street in Recife in Brazil, apart from the now normal bars on windows and surveillance cameras. There is obviously no rational reason why a private security service should want to send its officers here. But while we fol-low the company's resourceful boss as he convinces the residents of his offer, we learn the complicated and contradictory stories that make up this area of the city. They reach from the country's violent past to the everyday problems of its middle class, and encompass these arcs in a strange, exciting, breathless film photographed in beautiful Cinemascope. *Part of the LICHTER Audience Prize* _Festivals a.o.:_ _- ŸInternational Film Festival Rotterdam: FIPRESCI-Award_ _- CPH: PIX: ‘Neues Talent Grand Prix’-Award_ _- ŸSan Francisco International Film Festival_