AllMovie

Filmmaker Beth Bird captures the real-life struggle of a community determined to survive against all odds in this documentary. Maclovio Rojas is a small Mexican town not far from Tijuana that has become a victim of willful neglect by the Mexican government and powerful business interests. Maclovio Rojas sits in the path of a planned highway that has been proposed by a cartel of the nation's industrialists, but while Mexican officials have tried to order the people of Maclovio Rojas to leave, most of them have stayed put. After the town was run through with bulldozers, the locals rebuilt Maclovio Rojas as a shanty town (the school building has been fashioned from old garage doors), and have illegally tapped into water lines and electrical cables to provide utilities for the people. A number of Maclovio Rojas' citizens have become activists, determined to bring their story to the Mexican people and provide decent housing and education for their children. Beth Bird and her camera crew spent several months in Maclovio Rojas between 2001 and 2002, and Everyone Their Grain of Sand was compiled from the footage they shot, documenting their efforts to survive as well as their ongoing battle against the authorities. Everyone Their Grain of Sand was screened at the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival.