When a documentary film crew spends a week talking to tenants in an enormous Rio de Janeiro apartment building called the Master, they capture the charming stories of many lifetimes. As the film crew navigates through the narrow hallways and tiny studio apartments of the twelve-story, 267-apartment building in the Copacabana neighborhood, we become privy to awkward confessions, candid tears, boastful poetry readings, spirited organ recitals, and long-winded evenings of karaoke. We learn of burglaries, suicides, and assassinations as the Master's building supervisor shares his amusing and alarming theories of discipline toward deadbeat tenants derived from psychologist Jean Piaget and dictator Augusto Pinochet. As older occupants describe the gentrification of their home and neighborhood, young slackers report on the Master as a pit stop on their road to punk stardom. We hear from a former soap opera actor and a 60-year-old orphan as well as a teenaged prostitute, who takes time from supporting her family to flirt with the film crew. Master's warm and affectionate look at the moments a few folks have in the spotlight makes it much more than a nuts-and-bolts talking-heads documentary-director Eduardo Coutinho insightfully captures their melancholies, hopes, regrets, pride, and performances.