Two boys growing up in a poor Brazilian housing project, Cidade de Deus, take different paths: one becomes a photographer, the other a drug dealer. Rock, a poor black kid too frail and scared to become an outlaw but also too smart to be content with an underpaid job, discovers he can see reality with a different eye: the eye of an artist. Eventually he becomes a professional photographer, which is his redemption. Then there is Lil Dice, a kid the same age who already dreams of being Rio de Janeiro's most dangerous criminal. Before long, he will be. Through Rocket's perspective of live, we understand the humanity of a world apparently condemned to endless violence.