The story is centred on Lena, who is 38 years old and lives in Poland. One night, while driving to Łódź on a motorway, she witnesses an accident. She sees how a woman trapped in a car burns to death. The screams of Nina, the victim, haunt Lena from then on, and she starts to suffer more and more from insomnia. Lena tries to find out who the woman was. This quest whisks the protagonist away on a physical as well as an emotional journey into her subconscious. The nights on the motorway turn into nightmares, and Lena has to find a way out of them.
In State of Fear, the members of the Brotherhood face a critical moment when their main leaders are transferred to maximum-security prisons, threatening the group’s stability. Elisa (Camilla Damião), the 18-year-old daughter of Edson (Seu Jorge), founder of the Brotherhood, was raised on the periphery of crime and is kidnapped by corrupt police officers. As her aunt Cristina (Naruna Costa) tries to rescue her, the gang orders the “State of Fear,” a wave of violent attacks against police stations and security forces that plunges the city of São Paulo into chaos. In the midst of the turmoil, Elisa and Cristina grapple with dilemmas of justice and violence as the choices of the past and present collide to shape their destinies.