一组纪录片制片人发现，有六人被关押在圣保罗的监狱里。圣保罗。他们因不同的罪行入狱，但在监狱里被认定为真正的“171”，一种叙述者——有点变色龙——可以利用他的语言能力欺骗别人，或者只是为了欺骗别人而操纵别人。这171人是天生的演员，他们生活在不断的表演中，生活和戏剧在一个永恒的场景中是一体的。和路易吉·皮兰德娄的经典作品一样，这部电影的六个角色虚构了关于他们自己的故事。有些甚至是真的，但谁也分不清哪些是杜撰的。

A team of documentary filmmakers finds six people incarcerated in prisons in S?o Paulo. They do time for different crimes, but are identified in prisons as authentic “171”, a type of narrator — a bit of a chameleon — who can use his ability with words scam or just manipulate people for the pleasure of deceiving. The 171 are born actors and live in constant performance, in an eternal mise-en-scène in which life and theater are one and the same. As in Luigi Pirandello‘s classic, the film‘s six characters invent stories about themselves. Some are even true, but one can’t tell which are invented.