Renovación 1 sits in Escuintla, an hour and a half from Guatemala City, and holds nearly 200 inmates serving sentences up to 100 years in what was once known as El Infernito, Little Hell. The film goes inside with masked guards, including 25-year-old Pablo, one of the few staff permitted to talk directly with prisoners, and follows inmates like Franklin, in isolation through 40 years, and Marlon, 31 years into his sentence, whose possessions amount to clothes, hygiene items, paper, and a Bible. They leave their cells for one hour every two weeks. Cameras document a 2024 police raid that turned up weapons, phones, slot machines, and fiber-optic cable smuggled in for gang communication, and the film builds toward an inspection by the Vice Minister of Security, with guards running tense cell searches beforehand to prove the facility is truly under control. Interviews with staff and inmates sit alongside surveillance-style footage of the raid, giving a procedural look at how a maximum-security prison in one of the Americas' most violent countries actually runs.