Trailer for the documentary Bay of All Saints.
For generations in Bahia, Brazil, thousands of impoverished families created homes in shacks over the ocean bay. In 2005, the government reclaims this territory for ecological restoration and promises public housing—but the families don't know when, where or if this promise will ever be kept. Bay of All Saints is a distinctly intimate portrait of three single mother families in transition, told from the point of view of Norato, a popular refrigerator repairman who spends his days wondering from shack to shack. We follow Norato into the lives of Geni, AKA 'The Mayor', a manager of a pizzeria who becomes a community organizer; Jesus, a laundry-washer, struggling to raise her rebellious daughter and dreaming of a Prince Charming who never comes; Dona Maria, a trash-picker, once freed from domestic servitude and now raising 19 children and grandchildren in the water slum. Over six years, Norato guides us through the inner-household turmoil these women face: failed romances; pregnant teenagers; struggles to earn money; runaway children; wind and rats. When the bulldozers arrive, we see these women rise up as their precarious circumstances compel them to see their government, their homes and the bay in a whole new light.