Luis Carlos, also called "The Rat" and Luciano de Souca, also known as "The Chinaman" are gang members who were abandoned as kids to the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These two Cariocas teenagers have been left to their own devices all their lives and have survived by begging, stealing, and dealing in drugs. Brightening this harsh life are the friendships that have sustained them, their loyalty to each other, and their contagious high spirits that emerge at events like Carnival.

This film allows them to speak in their own words. For Luis, the controlling imperatives are eating and surviving. China, the sixteen-year-old gang leader has a canniness and intelligence that allows his to survive on the fringe of society. He steals to buy food and also glue whose fumes provide him with a blissful high -- the only happiness he has ever known.

Unemployment, population explosion and the break up of families is the root cause of the abandonment of such kids all over the Third World. This unique document was filmed despite the barriers put up by a government that does not want such images revealed.

Latin American Studies Association, 1998
Margaret Mead Film Festival, 1995