Filmed over six years, Annie Eastman’s debut is a lyrical portrait of three women who live on the palafitas, or shacks built on stilts, in the biggest bay in Bahia, Brazil. As the government threatens to reclaim the land for ecological reasons, generations of families, most of them single mothers, will be displaced. With Narato, the neighborhood refrigerator repairman as our guide, we meet Geni, Jesus, and Dona Maria, women with different mindsets but all compelled—in their own way—to fight for their family’s future and survival amidst the state’s urban development blunders and broken promises.

Annie first came to the water slums of Bahia, Brazil in 1999 to work with a grassroots arts and education organization called GRUCON.  She worked and resided in this neighborhood for 18-months, learned Portuguese and co-directed a short documentary to support GRUCON’s work.  Later she joined Just Media as Associate Producer, Translator, Additional Camera and Assistant Editor on Daniel Junge’s THEY KILLED SISTER DOROTHY, a feature-length documentary that follows the aftermath of a Catholic nun’s assassination in the Brazilian Amazon (HBO Films, Winner SXSW Film Festival 2008, nominated for National Emmy 2010).  Annie also worked as Assistant Editor and Production Coordinator on other Just Media’s films: THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF GOVERNOR BOOTH GARDNER (HBO Films, nominated for an Academy Award 2010); IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA (Toronto Film Festival 2007, broadcast on PBS and BBC).  Currently she works as an independent Producer/Camera/Editor in Denver. She began shooting BAY OF ALL SAINTS at the end of 2004 when she learned of the State of Bahia’s controversial plans to demolish the last of the water slums, home to many of the woman she had befriended while living in the slum.

Annie first came to the water slums of Bahia, Brazil in 1999 to work with a grassroots arts and education organization called GRUCON.  She worked and resided in this neighborhood for 18-months, learned Portuguese and co-directed a short documentary to support GRUCON’s work.  Later she joined Just Media as Associate Producer, Translator, Additional Camera and Assistant Editor on Daniel Junge’s THEY KILLED SISTER DOROTHY, a feature-length documentary that follows the aftermath of a Catholic nun’s assassination in the Brazilian Amazon (HBO Films, Winner SXSW Film Festival 2008, nominated for National Emmy 2010).  Annie also worked as Assistant Editor and Production Coordinator on other Just Media’s films: THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF GOVERNOR BOOTH GARDNER (HBO Films, nominated for an Academy Award 2010); IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA (Toronto Film Festival 2007, broadcast on PBS and BBC).  Currently she works as an independent Producer/Camera/Editor in Denver. She began shooting BAY OF ALL SAINTS at the end of 2004 when she learned of the State of Bahia’s controversial plans to demolish the last of the water slums, home to many of the woman she had befriended while living in the slum.