Severina, a ten year old girl who lives in a narrow alley in a favela in Recife, Brazil, sees something completely different from the slums people see in movies and on TV. For her, life is a fairy tale of conflicts and romances between kingdoms and princes, where dragons might attack at any time and love is always just around the corner.

Severina tells the story of her prince, Okado, a young break dancer who has been cast as a gangster in a nightly soap opera. Okado wants to present an honest portrait of a gangster on TV, so he interviews the drug dealers in his and in enemy favelas... only to find that the real godfather of crime, a corrupt police officer, wants no one asking questions in his territory. At the same time, he learns that the TV director doesn’t want a realistic gangster, but a cartoon ghetto villain.

Mixing documentary honesty with the innocence of a little girl, The Princess in the Alleyway shows the Brazilian favela like you have never seen it before.