Availability worldwide
Language French, Portuguese
Subtitles English

Water and Salt

Água e sal

Luisa Mello, Belgium, Brazil, 2019, 10’

During the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, a woman floats in waters far from home. When everything seems calm, a wave hits and carries her to the depths of her being. Water and Salt is a journey through the consciousness of someone whose country is under threat of a fascist government.

Water and Salt (Luisa Mello, 2019)

essay

Watery tensions

Luisa Mello’s Water and Salt

Kathy Vanhout

03.04.2022

Apart from water, salt, and clouds, Mello’s work often features young and older people, artists, animals, and cities; these things are the source of her documentaries. Her films always leave room for fictive contemplation and interpretations. Water and Salt, for that matter, hardly reads as a documentary. In these reflective ten minutes, she attempts to translate a thought, a feeling, an observation. In situations like this, where words are insufficient, and the outside world offers few answers, Mello constructs her own images. Or she turns to archival ones.

Credits

Script

Luisa Mello

Camera

Hanna Hovitie

Editor

Luisa Mello

Sound

António Porém Pires

Production

DocNomads

essay documentary coming-of-age poetry

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