1959 Press Notes:
"And the salt was more precious than gold."

"…and beneath the everyday, uncover the unusual." - Berthold Brecht

A peninsula in the Caribbean in northern Venezuela: Araya. One of the most barren regions of the world, where man depends entirely on the produce of the sea: salt, fish.
Since its discovery by the Spaniards in 1500, the exploitation of Araya's natural salt marshes has been done by hand. For centuries, this land remained one of the richest in the New World, where pirates and slave-dealers mingled with smugglers and pearl-traffickers. For those adventurers, Salt, like Gold, was a coveted object…

After this splendid period, Araya declined into complete oblivion.

The story by Margot Benacerraf takes place over twenty-four hours, one day, in Araya. One day like so many others of these past 450 years.

But these twenty-four hours in the lives of the salt workers (salineros) bring about a strange, peculiar dimension. The film, from the first images, submerges the viewer into a universe of rare beauty: where life is born of the sky and the sea, where nature is created and recreated in an endless and ever renewed movement.

It is a landscape ravaged by corrosion. A barren earth whipped by the wind and an implacable, brutal light.

This is Araya. Human beings and animals cling to the soil and perpetuate. This fresco-like film unveils three villages, three ways of living in three families that intermingle and complement each other. Their simplest gestures, as the hours while away, are filled with an exceptional resonance.

Twenty-four hours that have lasted 450 years, twenty-four hours repeated endlessly for the people of Araya, until the day when…

Araya is man persevering under the most taxing circumstances.

by Margot Benacerraf
Venezuela / France, 1959. Restored digital. 90 min.

Director: Margot Benacerraf

Writers: Margot Benacerraf and Pierre Seghers

Narrator: José Ignacio Cabrujas (Spanish language version)

Narrator: Laurent Terzieff (French language version)

Original Music by: Guy Bernard

Cinematography by: Giuseppe Nisoli

Film Editing by: Pierre Jallaud and Francine Grübert

Distributor: Milestone Film & Video (worldwide)

In Manicuare: The Pereda Family (night workers in the salt marshes)

In El Rincón: The Ortiz Family (fishermen)

Araya: The Salazar family (day workers in the salt marsh)

Venezuela/France. 1959. 35mm. B&W. 82 minutes. 2470 meters. Mono sound.

Aspect ratio 1:1.66. Black and white. © 1959 and 2009 Margot Benacerraf and Milestone.

Location: Araya, Estado Sucre, Venezuela

International Critics' Prize: 1959 Cannes Film Festival

Award of the Higher Technical Commission of French Cinema: Cannes Film Festival

Original Lab: L.T.C. France

Subtitling: LVT Laser Video Titres, New York.

Initial Premiere: May 13, 1959 at the Cannes Film Festival

World premiere of the restored film: February 7, 2009 at the Berlin Film Festival