A bloody history of the drug scene in the oldest and most dangerous slum in Rio de Janeiro, set between the 1960s and 980s. Young boys are already playing with guns in the dusty corners of a street called Cidade de Deus. Their examples, whom they try to emulate, are older friends from criminal street gangs. Whoever was born in the local favelas will also die here – probably sooner rather than later, and it will be a violent death. Buscape is growing up in a brutal environment and, until he sees his friends through his camera lens for the first time, he has no idea that it might lead to his salvation. The idea of "another optical solution"becomes the means to transform himself from "actor" to "observer": horrified, compassionate and unable to close his eyes before a hopeless world.

"This is cinema at its most dynamic, pulsating with a powerfully unpredictable energy. This tale of street crime and turf wars made all the more vibrant by the fact that it was shot on dangerous, real locations, and performed by an ensemble cast of unknowns who had the dust of these very favelas in their blood. The tragedy is compounded by the tender age of the characters."
Colin Kennedy, Empire