OS BARCOS [DOC EDGE 2025]

In the Brazilian favela of Gamboa, a viral rooftop restaurant draws tourists and influencers, while locals struggle behind the scenes to survive and reclaim pride amidst rising tensions and inequality. As the Iemanjá festival approaches, the community’s resilience and fight for dignity come to the fore.

Os Barcos is not your typical documentary. It eschews narration, avoids guided interviews, and refuses to tell you what to think. Instead, it offers something more rare: space. Space for a community to speak for itself, for its tensions and triumphs to be felt rather than explained. In doing so, it becomes a quietly powerful exploration of economic disparity, resilience, and cultural identity in the face of unchecked tourism. 

Set in the Brazilian favela of Gamboa, high above Salvador Bay, the film centres around the unassuming success of Mônica’s open-air restaurant, now a viral hotspot for tourists and influencers. From the outside, it may look like a community thriving on the influx of visitors. But as Os Barcos reveals, the reality is more complex.

Behind the Instagram-friendly veneer lies a neighbourhood straining under inequality. Locals lug heavy crates down vertiginous staircases, fish beneath the relentless sun, and work tirelessly to feed and serve guests—many of whom remain oblivious to the hardship around them. Meanwhile, wealthier residents in nearby districts sip drinks on their terraces, offering nothing more than disapproving glances toward Gamboa's rising profile. 

Through long, observational takes and ambient sound, the film allows Gamboa’s residents to narrate their own lives. We meet a range of characters: Mônica, embroiled in political wrangling over development rights; a hopeful shopkeeper trying to make ends meet; youth chasing employment by building boats or doing odd jobs; and street vendors navigating a tourism industry that often favours glossy, well-funded operations over grassroots effort.

This approach results in a documentary that is as slow-burning as it is emotionally rich. Yes, the pacing meanders. Yes, it takes time to find its rhythm. But that very looseness becomes its strength. It reflects the lived reality of the people on screen—where time is shaped by tides, power cuts, and bureaucracy, not by the demands of a story arc.


Mônica’s restaurant forms a narrative anchor, particularly as we see her clash with city officials, police, and planning departments. At one point, the community bands together to build new infrastructure for the restaurant—only to watch the authorities attempt to demolish it, even while similar developments just down the road are left untouched. These moments are not presented with outrage or explanation; they are simply shown, raw and unfiltered.

Tourism's double edge is a consistent theme. Tourists seek authenticity, yet their expectations often lead to the displacement of the very communities that make a place vibrant. Visitors demand standards set by capital, not culture—leaving local operators unable to compete. And while tourism dollars flow in, little of that wealth stays with those who need it most.

The film also touches, quietly but persistently, on issues of race and class. Dark-skinned residents speak of not using their home addresses when applying for jobs because it disadvantages them. One senses that the lines between social class, geography, and skin colour are thickly drawn in this part of Brazil.

Yet Os Barcos is not all struggle. It is equally a celebration of community, of shared labour, of resilience. There is joy in the cooking, the fishing, the building. There is pride in hosting a festival like Iemanjá, and in holding onto traditions that outsiders may overlook. The documentary’s strength lies in this balance: hardship is not romanticised, but nor is it the whole story.

What makes Os Barcos remarkable is that it never dictates. It does not guide you through talking heads or summarise its conclusions in neat graphics. Instead, it observes. It listens. It trusts the audience to witness, absorb, and reflect. This method may not appeal to those seeking a fast-paced or tightly structured experience. But for viewers willing to slow down, it offers something deeply human.

Os Barcos is a testament to a community’s will to define its own future, even as outside forces seek to reshape it. It’s a documentary that lingers—on screen, and in the mind—reminding us that in the battle between big money and small communities, the human story is often the one most worth telling.

Directed by Vincent Boujon | 86 mins | France | Portuguese | World Premiere – Tides of Change Category

Screening at the Doc Edge documentary festival, in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and online from 25 June.