1983, northern Chile. Lidia (7 years old) lives in an isolated mining town, which is being threatened by an unknown sickness. It has already killed several men and, according to the locals, it's transmitted when a man falls in love with another man. Only through a gaze. Her adored brothers, Alexo (23 years old) and Nicolás (15 years old), are suspected to be carriers of the sickness and therefore they're blindfolded and put in quarantine. Lidia sees that the townspeople begin to harass them, and their father, Gastón (43 years old), exposes them to humiliating public situations trying to prove that they are not ill. Everyone starts to believe them, however, things get complicated when Alexo catches a cold and cannot get better for weeks. This pushes Lidia towards a confrontation with her father and the townspeople who are immersed in the windstorm of a local myth, in order to get help.

Six elderly women religiously gather for tea, once a month, for the past sixty years. In these meetings, they try to look their best, jovial, as if they had their whole lives ahead of them, trying to momentarily hide the fact that time is inevitably passing for them.
Around the table, they make an effort to have something to tell, not to go unnoticed, showing they are still up-to-date. They spend their time interpreting current affairs and fashion from what others, or the TV, have told them. Despite not understanding some trends, they comment on them with absolute authority, trying to explain them to one another. In these teatime gatherings they learn, for instance, who is Madonna, what are swingers, and what “cool,” “humping,” and “making out,” mean.
When there are discrepancies, it is the personal histories that come out and highlight the differences of opinion. Despite having a common education in a religious school, they had to live through a period of radical historical changes that provoked polarizations within the group: some had access to higher education, others opted for being homemakers; some used contraceptives, others became widows before having access to them; some separated due to their husbands’ infidelities, others decided to keep appearances; some married officers in the armed forces, others had to suffer the disappearance of relatives during the dictatorship. Therefore, despite having very different biographies and personalities, which generates constant quarrels among them, in the long run they manage to understand, complement and accompany each other.
They have suffered mild losses in sense perceptions, but each one has a different ailment, so that an individual lack is supplemented by the group-mates. For example, the one that is not listening reads to the one that does not see. Thus, they manage to put together a lifestyle system that completely ignores the illnesses they suffer. The afternoons pass and it seems that nothing in their lives changes, until the death of one of them makes them go through a period of evident transformation.