AllMovie

Directed by Roberto Berliner, Born to Be Blind follows the plight of three sisters, all of whom have been blind since birth. Their days are spent playing music on the streets of Campaina Grande, Brazil, and their perspectives regarding the poverty and hardship of their lives are based in a strong, unabashedly religious sense of destiny. Maria Barbosa, the eldest of the three, rejects the possibility of intermarriage of relatives as the cause of their conditions, and remains insistent that it is rooted in "the will of God." The other sisters, Regina and Conceição, join Maria in endless chants and rattle shaking in an effort to bring home money. Ironically, the process of filming the documentary served that purpose, albeit temporarily -- the sisters attracted the attention of the local news and were viewed briefly as semi-celebrities by locals.