The story of an elderly man from the Nahuatl-speaking village of San Agustín Oapan, Guerrero, Mexico. Silvestre Pantaleón follows the protagonist as he struggles to pay for a curing ceremony and provide for his family. He dedicates himself to the only remunerative activities he knows: handcrafting rope for religious ceremonies and building seldom-used household objects that he alone still has the skills to produce. Silvestre Pantaleón is a simple, though universal, tale of aging, told with a lyrical combination of lingering imagery and quotidian detail.