AllMovie

Veteran director Antonio-Pedro Vasconcelos spins this gritty, unsentimental tale about underage street kids in Portugal. The film opens with a teenaged worker at a bakery getting dumped off at a hospital after losing his finger. The boss instructs the youth's father to tell the doctors that he lost his digit playing with a knife, but fearing an investigation, the boss subsequently dumps his other underage workers, including 13-year old Jaime (Saul Fonseca). Jaime is struggling to mend his tattered family. His mother threw his father out of the house and has taken up with a disreputable Brazilian. His heartbroken father moved into a shack and has been unemployed since his moped was stolen. Jaime's hopes that he could reunite his family by buying his dad a replacement scooter are dashed when the Brazilian steals his cash; Jaime subsequently moves out of his mom's place and in with his father. Meanwhile, Jaime and his sidekick Ulisses (Sandro Silva) sleep during their days at school and look for job opportunities at night. Jaime won a special jury prize at the 1999 San Sebastian Film Festival.