Nelson Ebelt

Canudos was a small village in northeastern Brazil, founded by the messianic leader Antônio Conselheiro and massacred by a powerful army until the death of the last of its 30,000 inhabitants, on October 5, 1897. The film tells the story of the Canudos massacre from an English cannon, nicknamed by the backlands people "A Matadeira", which was transported by twenty teams of oxen through the backlands to fire a single shot.

A fifteen-year-old girl is beaten by her father and seeks shelter at a friend's house. Between tears and sobs, she watches her friend's father. He feels sorry for a child, but she is a woman. Tonight, they will have to discover the difference between passion and compassion.