Ilona is an impetuous Hungarian aristocrat who, giving up her two year-old daughter for adoption in order to escape the Communist rape of her country, makes her way to Brazil, the land of her dreams. She seeks help from a psycho-analyst who falls head-over-heels in love with her, and together they buy a stud farm in the mountains near Rio de Janeiro. Luís devotes himself to his love and to breeding horses, while the heroine dedicates her life to her artistic talents, producing lifelike paintings of animals.Their hectic and alcohol-fuelled love-life spirals out of control until Luís, discovering that his very existence is dominated by alcohol and violence, has to abandon the love of his life. Ilona continues to live her Brazilian dream now at Ilhéus, the cocoa capital of Brazil, where she later dies in mysterious circumstances.Moving on twenty years, Luís discovers Ilona´s adopted daughter living in Switzerland, and returns to Ilhéus where he unearths the dramatic circumstances leading to Ilona´s premature death. Emotionally charged now by this tragedy, can Luís re-establish the link between the estranged daughter and her mother, his lost former wife? A plot in an underhand way for discovering an unknown Brazil.