Plot

Director Rubén Abruña explores the journey of our food after it has been digested and excreted by us. He follows the trail of human feces from the sewers of Paris to one of the largest sewage treatment plants in Chicago.

When sewers were built in the 19th century, they were regarded as a blessing. Deadly epidemics that wiped out millions of people became a thing of the past. However, sewers also abolished the millennia-old tradition of using our excrement as fertilizer and broke the nutrient cycle of grow-eat-excrete-compost to grow food again. The modern flush and forget toilet discards our excrement as waste, while agriculture uses more mineral fertilizers which either require large amounts of fossil fuels to be produced, or are non-renewable, and whose global reserves are uncertain.

In "Holy Shit" Rubén Abruña follows a human turd to understand what happens to it, how it is managed, and how it affects us. With him we explore the famous Parisian sewers, and one of the biggest wastewater treatment plants in the world, located in Chicago. Sewage sludge, produced by wastewater treatment plants, is used as fertilizer, but it pollutes aquifers, and soils, and makes people sick. It also forces farmers to dump their milk and kill their cows.

That prompts Rubén Abruña to seek for regenerative options. The Eco-Machine invented by Dr. John Todd uses plants to turn wastewater into clean water that can be reused. The "Poop Pirates" in Uganda teach people how to use container-based dry toilets to make fertilizer and prevent epidemics. In Sweden, Carl Lindstrom designs a dry toilet that is not disgusting, and in Germany and Switzerland, entire residential complexes have their own localized treatment plants that produce electricity and fertilizer.

"Holy Shit" shows in playful and informative ways that an open confrontation with our excreta, shit, poop, feces, caca, scheisse, merde, or whichever way we call it, is overdue, because we will not find solutions to the problem if we don't talk about it.

In his quest Rubén Abruña meets pioneers who have solutions that put the poop back into the loop to better tackle the challenges of global food security, environmental protection, hygiene, and climate crisis.