Atambua 39 Derajat Celcius

Title translation: Atambua 39 Degrees Celcius

Place of events: the present Atambua. Ronaldo Bautista, 47 year old, begins his work before dawn as an intercity bus driver. Joao, his teenage son, has been separated from his mother since Timor Leste’s referendum 10 years ago.

Joao, estranged from his father, prefers to be outside. One day Nikia Dos Santos, a Kupang girl, comes to Atambua because her grandfather dies. Joao is drawn to her, not knowing how to express his feelings.

Getting drunk in his work place, Ronaldo gets fired and then goes to jail out of a brawl in a billiard club. At the same time Nikia returns to Kupang, having learned Joao’s feelings, expressed in a harsh, excessive way. How devastated Joao is, trying to find money to bail his father out and search for Nikia in Kupang.

Ronaldo returns to an empty house. In his son’s bedroom he finds tapes containing his wife’s voice, knowing that his son plays them a lot. Listening to those tapes himself, Ronaldo realizes the same loss. Meanwhile in Kupang Joao finds out about Nikia’s tragic life.

Ronaldo, Joao and Nikia each struggle from pain of the past. One of them must save the others.