The Salt of the Earth - with Sebastião Salgado

I knew the 1954 movie Salt of the Earth, about a long strike, in 1961, in Mexico. It is a feminist film, showing women striking to support workers struggle for a better work conditions. The film shows how the miners, the company, and the police react during the strike. It's style is neorealist, the producers and director used actual miners and their families as actors in the film. It was a great movie that strengthened my radical feminist point of view and my solidarity with workers' movements. 

Miners claimed equal payment and wages with Anglo workers as well as better health programmes for them and their families. Because of the fear of police, the miners' wives replaced them in the strike and stand there firmly into the end. Esperanza Quitero is one of the characters protrayed in the movie, played by Rosaura Revuletas. 
I remembered the circle of women with small posters in their hands, and walking around all the day. Also the solidarity among them and from the neighbours to support with food, medicines and whatever they need to go on striking for so long time. 

Tonight, I saw another The Salt of the Earth, a Brazilian-French and Italian biographical documentary directed by Wim Wenders — the director of Der Himmel über Berlin —, and Sebastião Salgado's son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado. I knew some of the photographs of Sebastião Salgado but I didn't imagine how much he had worked. The movie received many awards, the Cannes Festival Special Prize and César Award for Best Documentary Film.  In the team of the producers, there is also Wim Wenders, but also Lélia Wanick Salgado, Sebastião's wife, and David Rosier, Julia de Abreu, Fakhrya Fakhry, Andrea Gambetta and Christine Ponelle. 

The movie shows how important his wife was in his career — Lélia Wanick Salgado.



References:
Salt of the Earth (1954) written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico. 
Salt of the Earth (2014) written by Wim Wenders, Juliano Salgado and David Rosier, Directed by Wim Wenders and Juliano Salgado and produced by Wim Wenders, but also Lélia Wanick Salgado, Sebastião's wife, and David Rosier, Julia de Abreu, Fakhrya Fakhry, Andrea Gambetta and Christine Ponelle.

Interview with Lourdes Bandeira

In her office, I interviewed Lourdes Bandeira about Lei Maria da Penha in Brasil. 

Lourdes Bandeira was the Secretary for Public Policies for Women in the Federal Government of the President Dilma. Author of a large ammount of sociological works, Lourdes Bandeira has been researching about feminism, violence against women in Brasil, and other topics. 

Asked about the evaluation of the impact of Lei Maria da Penha (Lei # 11.340/06), the researcher answered that the Secretary has no money to implement a national evaluation. She added that this law was subjected to a Constitutional Court decision, because some magistrates claimed that it was not constitutional. But in 2012, the Supreme Court decided that Lei Maria da Penha is constitutional and Brazil, and all the 27 states have the obligation to protect women from violence to fulfill the Law. 

Lourdes Bandeira emphasized the dichotomy in the judicial professionals: some are very committed to apply the law, but others are still defending the 'family', using the argument that this kind of violence as a minor offensive potential.

During the interview, the well known feminist researcher and activist shared with us her perspective on femicide and feminicide (feminicídio). For her, feminicide is a type of femicide with cruelty, including desfiguration of the victim and extreme antecipation from the side of the murder. In distinct way, femicide would be a murder in result of an emotional moment.


Reference:
Bandeira, Lourdes (2009) "Três décadas de resistência feminista contra o sexismo e a violência feminina no Brasil, 1976 a 2006", Sociedade e Estado, v. 24, nº2, 401-438, Brasília.