The Salt of the Earth

Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Wim Wenders

Beautiful portrait by Wim Wenders of the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, whose intensely powerful pictures have moved and shocked the world – and shaken it.

More than twenty years ago, filmmaker Wim Wenders’s eye was caught by a photograph of a blind Berber woman. To this day the picture hangs in his studio. The man who took it is Sebastião Salgado, a Brazilian photographer who has made countless journeys around the world. He lived with indigenous people and in refugee camps for months and sometimes years at a time, and he always returned with powerful images.

Salgado is marked by the life he led, and his quiet voice accompanies the black-and-white photographs, some of them depicting unimaginable tragedies and cruelties. But what is a photographer to do when, after the umpteenth trip, he no longer wants to document new atrocities? Together with his son, Salgado took his camera to film among walruses and polar bears, to show that there are still many untainted places in the world. Wenders and Salgado’s son Juliano Ribeiro have created an exquisite overview of this passionate photographer’s oeuvre, and of the man who believes that every story, no matter how barbaric, deserves to be told.

Credits

Director
Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Wim Wenders
Year
2014
Country of production
France, Brazil
Type
Documentary
Duration
110 minutes
Spoken language
French, Portuguese
Subtitles
NL
Production company
Decia Films
World Sales
Le Pacte
Dutch distributor
Cinéart