Housemaids

Seven Brazilian teenagers from diverse backgrounds film their live-in maids, providing a personal insight into their relationships with these quasi-family members from another world. Using video cameras, the teenagers film their home help carrying out their daily work: cooking, taking children to school, cleaning, ironing. In candid discussions between tasks, the maids talk about their backgrounds, their work, love and happiness, as well as about how it feels to live with a family as a permanent subordinate. In most cases, the young people have grown up with their maid - in some, she has almost become a full-fledged member of the family. They celebrate holidays together, share a family history and their lives intertwine. Sometimes, the housemaid is passed on within a family from generation to generation. Sometimes they wear a uniform and live in a separate outbuilding, while other times the relationship becomes so close that the lady of the house helps their maid during childbirth. In these domestic "home movies," which are intercut with one another throughout the film, the teenagers reveal how attached they and their maids have become to one another despite the uneven power relations, uncovering a dynamic that goes back to the times of slavery and provides us with a glimpse into the evolution of Brazilian society.