Antonio Ferreira, a young Portuguese carpenter, dreams of going to Paris where his friend Carlos lives and has promised to help him find a job. Because of strict passport regulations, Antonio agrees to pay an underground network to smuggle him into Spain and across the border to France. En route, he and his colleagues are abandoned and forced to continue their journey on foot. Discouraged by the cold and hardships, Antonio's companions return to Portugal, and he is left to continue the journey alone. Confident that Carlos will help him, Antonio makes his way to Paris, only to discover that Carlos has been away for some time. Not knowing where to turn, Antonio goes to Dominique, a young French nurse whom he had met in Portugal. Though she can be of little help to an illegal immigrant who speaks almost no French, she arranges for him to earn some money by helping move a doctor's family into a new home. When Carlos finally appears, Antonio is disappointed to discover that he will have to pay his friend a high price to procure working papers and continue to pay him a portion of his salary for 5 years. Realizing that Carlos has betrayed him, Antonio downheartedly moves into a muddy shantytown that is worse than the Portuguese village he left behind.
