Fed up with Barcelona City Council claiming that public transport couldn't reach the Torre Baró district because the streets were too narrow and unsafe, Manolo Vital, a local resident and bus driver for the city's public transport service, set out to show, from behind the wheel of the route 47 bus - "El 47"- that the authorities were wrong. 'El 47' is the inspiring true story of a man, a bus and a neighborhood's fate. The film tells the story of Barcelona's Torre Baró neighborhood, but it is also that of many other communities formed in the 50s by immigrants who settled on the outskirts of Spain's main cities. In many cases, they lived in dwellings built with their own hands after having had to leave their land to carve out new lives far from home. Years later, in the 1970s, many of these neighborhoods were still not considered part of the city and lacked running water, electricity and other basic amenities.