A portrait of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, perhaps the pre-eminent “social photographer” of our time. His work is immersed in conflicts, famines, mass migrations, and other man-made catastrophes. The film is based on his book Genesis, which contains photographs covering Antarctica, the Arctic, and points in between. Ultimately, the film reveals a cycle of land that dies and is then reborn. France/Brazil/Italy, 2015, 110 minutes, in French, Portuguese, and English, with subtitles
2015 Oscar nominee
“Many of the images – and Salgado’s accounts of taking them – are as soul-shattering as they are breathtaking.”– Sara Stewart, New York Post
“Most of the photographs on view in The Salt of the Earth bear witness to great suffering, and what they exalt is not the photographer’s eye but the fearful humanity that binds us all. . . .” – Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
“This moving, Oscar-nominated documentary is an odyssey of a tragic observer. . . .” – Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times