Review

Wim Wenders's film is based upon the true and agreeable story of the greatest Brazilian creator : Sebastian Salgado, instantly recognisable on his gorgeous black and white photographs . Salgado and his work are the focus of the film The Salt of the Earth (2014), directed by Wim Wenders and Salgado's son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, and produced by Lélia Wanick Salgado . Concerning life and work , for the last 40 years , of this awesome photographer , Sebastião Salgado, who has spent forty years documenting societies , travelling through the continents and exploring along with his camera in hidden corners of the world, while paying a deep tribute to the planet's beauty . He has witnessed some of the major events of our recent history ; international conflicts , in Brazil , Borneo , Kuwait , Rwanda , including starvation , wars and exodus . At the same time are revealed to us in this documentary , his over-the-top work , his peaceful ideology , good-natured thought , ecology feeling and many other things.

This splendid , enjoyable documentary depicts the interesting life of the great photographer Sebastiao Salgado who has been travelling through the continents here and there , discovering new issues to shoot . As Salgado initially worked with the photo agency Sygma and the Paris-based Gamma, but in 1979, he joined the international cooperative of photographers Magnum Photos. He left Magnum in 1994 and with his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado formed his own agency, Amazonas Images, in Paris, to represent his work. He is particularly noted for his social documentary photography of workers in less developed nations and following the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. His work resides in Paris. Salgado works on long term, self-assigned projects, many of which have been published as books : The Other Americas, Sahel, Workers, Migrations, and Genesis. The latter three are mammoth collections with hundreds of images each from all around the world. His most famous pictures are of a gold mine in Brazil called Serra Pelada. He has also been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2001 . Together, Lélia and Sebastião have worked since the 1990s on the restoration of a part of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. In 1998, they succeeded in turning 17,000 acres into a nature reserve and created the Instituto Terra. The institute is dedicated to a mission of reforestation, conservation , environmental education and embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of grandiose outdoors , of wild fauna and flora . Between 2004 and 2011, Salgado worked on Genesis, aiming at the presentation of the unblemished faces of nature and humanity. It consists of a series of photographs of landscapes and wildlife, as well as of human communities that continue to live in accordance with their ancestral traditions as well as cultures , and always in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity . This body of work is conceived as a potential path to humanity's rediscovery of itself in nature. In September and October 2007, Salgado displayed his photographs of coffee workers from India, Guatemala, Ethiopia and Brazil at the Brazilian Embassy in London. This film The Salt of the Earth (2014) won a special award at Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the best Documentary Feature at the 2015 Academy Awards. It won the 2014 Audience Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, the 2015 Audience Award at the Tromsø International Film Festival, and the César Award for Best Documentary Film at the 40th César Awards.

This fascinating documentary was competently directed by Wim Wenders . This great German director Wim Wenders has made thoughtful and thought-provoking films , and he has a peculiar fascination with rare and outlandish roles . He has made various prestigious documentaries , and notorious fiction movies and he even worked in Hollywood . As Francis Ford Coppola, as producer , gave Wenders the chance to direct in America : Hammett (1982) that was a critical and commercial failure . However , his American-made Paris, Texas (1984) (1984) received critical hosannas, wining three awards at Cannes, including the Palme d'Or, and Wenders won a BAFTA for best director. "Paris, Texas" was a prelude to his greatest success , "Wings of Desire"(1987) , which he made back in Germany . The film brought him the best director award at Cannes and was a solid hit, even spawning an egregious Hollywood remake and later on , Wenders himself directed a second part : ¨Faraway, So Close!¨(1993) that won the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes . Wenders followed it up with a critical and commercial flop "Until the End of the World"(1991) . Since the mid-1990s, Wenders has distinguished himself as a non-fiction filmmaker, directing several highly acclaimed documentaries , most notably ¨Buena Vista Social Club¨ (1999) and ¨Pina¨ (2011), both of which brought him Oscar nominations , as well as this The Salt of the Earth (2014). Rating : 7/10 , decent and agreeable documentary , though slow-moving , at times . The flick will appeal to Wim Wenders followers.