Eryk Rocha's edgy, impressionistic chronicle of the nocturnal encounters of a Rio cab driver vividly captures the strange unpredictability of a rapidly changing world.

Down on his luck and recently divorced, Paulo has begun driving a cab around Rio, hoping he'll make enough to send his ex money to support their ten-year-old son. He mostly works nights, so in addition to his encounters with a colorful variety of customers, colleagues, cops and others, he must cope with loneliness, fatigue and new faces in his life.

Down on his luck and recently divorced, Paulo (Boliveira) has begun driving a cab around Rio, hoping he'll make enough to send his ex money to support their ten-year-old son. He mostly works nights, so in addition to his encounters with a colorful variety of customers, colleagues, cops and others, he must cope with loneliness, fatigue and new faces in his life. Rocha's documentary background ensures a very effective interweaving of fiction and footage shot on the streets, while the camerawork and editing have a hallucinatory quality appropriate to Paulo's nocturnal existence. A persuasive portrait both of a vibrant, volatile city which embraces a range of different experiences and moods, and of a sometimes strangely unfamiliar world stumbling towards an uncertain future.—London Film Festival