Student's Heart (2002)

Original title: Coração de Estudante

Biology professor Edu is an idealistic man who moves with his son Lipe to the charming, fictional town of Nova Aliança, in Minas Gerais, in search of a better quality of life. Edu is engaged to Amelinha, daughter of the wealthy and greedy rancher João Mourão. But this relationship becomes unstable when Edu falls in love with the dreamy lawyer Clara, daughter of Lígia and the experienced lawyer Raul Gouveia. Edu is a single father and tries to always be present in Lipe's life, attempting to keep him away from his mother, Mariana, whose drug addiction prevented her from raising her son. Edu's future father-in-law, João Mourão, is the biggest businessman in Nova Aliança: he owns a farm, a dairy, a meatpacking plant, and a transportation company. João takes issue with Edu when he discovers that the young man is a strong defender of nature and environmental protection laws, which turns him into a rival in the fight for a stretch of virgin forest.