The Salt of the Earth paints a portrait of Sebastião Salgado, the great Brazilian photographer who recently passed away. The remarkable documentary is a journey into this extraordinary reporter’s wounds and his capacity for revitalisation, thanks to the help of nature and his wife, Lélia.

War destroys the human spirit. It strikes at the heart until it is obliterated. The nineties were marked by the wars in Rwanda and the Balkans; so much bloodshed, so much violence was recounted through the images of an immense photographer, the Brazilian Sebastião Salgado, who died on 23 March 2025.

The direct, profound contact he had with this suffering and horror almost led him to end his career. ‘My soul was sick,’ he recalled in the beautiful documentary that director Wim Wenders, together with Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, dedicated to him. The Salt of the Earth has returned to cinemas in Italy – distributed by Officine UBU – following the death of the photojournalist.

Sebastião Salgado and the Horror in Africa and Europe

Sebastião Salgado set out for the photography project ‘Exodus’ in Africa, which centred around refugees. But, on the way to Kigali, he found himself immersed in ‘90 miles of death’. He recalls this in the documentary: ‘When I left, I did not believe in anything. I did not believe in the salvation of the human race. You cannot survive something like that.’

Amid this tragedy, he lost himself. The barbarity, the brutality, both in Africa and in the heart of Europe, was widespread. ‘What disgusted me the most was to see how contagious hatred was.’ He had no strength left. ‘How many times in my life have I put my camera aside and sat down to cry?’ Wim Wenders’ narration best captures what happened: ‘Sebastião looked into the heart of darkness and questioned his role as a photographer and as a witness to the human condition.’

Helped by His Wife and by Nature

However, Sebastião Salgado managed to heal. He did so through two experiences, both of which were linked to nature and to an extraordinary woman: his wife, Lélia. After he returned home to Brazil, she suggested he plant a large number of new trees around the family farm, which had been devoured by desertification, in an attempt to try to restore – even partially – the wonder her husband used to have as a child.

‘The idea came from a desire to raise family morale,’ Wenders explains. But so much more happened: ‘Over the next ten years, a real miracle happened on these lands, which have since taken the name of “Instituto Terra”.’

Over time the forest was revitalised. Life, in all its forms, resumed. Among the green plants, water flowed again. The photographer’s heart was rekindled, but he took a different professional direction. Wenders commented: ‘They knew – he and his wife – that they could not do what they had done before’.

The Path of Beauty: ‘Genesis’

This path was different. The opposite. It was no longer the path of death, which destroys, which kills bodies and souls; it was the path of nature, which saves. ‘We realised that I could start a new photography project on the environment,’ he recalls. At first they thought about ‘exposure’. Then ‘a different project’, paying homage to the planet by photographing its redeeming beauty. Salgado set out on a journey to the Galapagos: nature in all its glory.

The project was called ‘Genesis’, and it was a decidedly more optimistic and restorative immersion in the same planet Salgado had seen destroyed by man years before. ‘“Genesis” needed to be a love letter to the planet,’ he explained in another part of The Salt of the Earth. ‘That was when I came to understand that I am part of nature, just like a turtle, a tree, a pebble’.

‘Amazônia’, Sebastião Salgado’s New Journey

In the wake of this revitalising experience, years later, the photographic exhibition ‘Amazônia’ – with over 200 pieces – was born. Sebastião Salgado spent six years photographing the Amazon rainforest in Brazil: not only its rivers, its foliage, its mountains, but also the people who live there.

Blending with the extraordinary, powerful images at the exhibition are the natural sounds of this land that is so densely enveloped in vegetation: the gentle sound of the trees, the voices of the animals, the song of the water rushing down from the mountains. Jean-Michel Jarre created this incredibly immersive soundtrack, capturing all the enchantment of nature and the purity of our shared home, and planting it within Salgado’s photographic journey.

This journey reveals a fragile beauty, guarded by indigenous Amazonian communities, who are able to live with her – Mother Earth – in harmony and equality. They set an example for other cultures and other populations. An example that Salgado, before leaving us, shared through his unparalleled photography, through his powerful way of communicating. For that, we will never stop being grateful.

Article translated into English by Becca Webley