A Chinese manicurist in Miami attempts to describe feelings she doesn't have the words for.

Inky sees, one night, a magical light that attracts him. Frustrated by not being able to shine, he sets out in search of this light. But for this, he will have to break with the past, to reach its luminescence and know, for the first time, the vast ocean.

VIVA ÁGUA is a meditation on the philosophical work entitled ÁGUA VIVA written by Clarice Lispector in 1973. The film reflects on Lispector’s interior experimental monologue on the “instant-now” of time, the discomforts of language which are “beyond thought” and the harmonious dissonant reminders and remainders of that “sometime what is seen is ineffable.”

Amamizukan is an apartment complex where no boys are allowed. Tsukimi, a girl who adores jellyfish, lives there happily with her friends who all have nerdy obsessions of their own. Their peaceful lives gradually start to change when a beautiful woman helps Tsukimi out of a pinch. She stays overnight at the apartments—but it turns out "she" is really a "he".