The Salt of the Earth

The Salt of the Earth is a documentary about the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, following four decades of work that took him across every continent. His camera recorded international conflicts, famine and mass migration, and the film traces how that long exposure to human suffering shaped him. Alongside that, it looks at a later project devoted to untouched landscapes and wildlife, a photographic tribute to the planet's remaining wilderness. The account comes from two directions: Salgado's son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, who travelled with him on his later journeys, and the filmmaker Wim Wenders, himself a photographer.

Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado direct together, and share screenplay credit with David Rosier, who also produced. The film sits between Wenders's Pina and Every Thing Will Be Fine, the sixteenth of the twenty-two features he has directed in chronological order. Salgado, Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Hugo Barbier, Lélia Wanick Salgado and Jacques Barthélémy all appear as themselves. It runs 110 minutes and was made as a co-production between Brazil, Italy and France, taking about six million dollars worldwide.

On IMDb it holds 8.4 out of 10 from roughly 25,000 votes, and on TMDB 8.1 from a much smaller base, while the critics' rating stands at 8 out of 10 across 95 reviews, so critical and audience responses sit closely together.