Araya

Director: Margot Benacerraf

Writer: Margot Benacerraf, Pierre Seghers

Cast: N/A

Distributor: Milestone Films

Country: Venezuela

Theatrical Release Date: October 7, 2009

Synopsis: The restoration of Margot Benacerraf's brilliant films "Reveron" and "Araya" will be a landmark in cinema history. Acclaimed as a forerunner of feminist Latina cinema, Araya was never released theatrically in the United States and has all but been forgotten since the initial acclaim it garnered when it shared the Cannes International Critics Prize with "Hiroshima, Mon Amour." Araya, a peninsula in northeastern Venezuela, is one of the most arid places on earth. For five hundred years, since its discovery by the Spanish, the region’s salt has been exploited manually. A 17th-century fortress built to protect against pirate raids stands as a reminder of the days when salt was worth almost as much as gold and great fortunes were made. Benacerraf captures the life of the salineros and their back-breaking work in breathtaking images. The Peredas family works at night in the salt marshes, the Ortiz are fishermen and the Salaz collect salt. The three stories underline the harsh life of this region — all of which vanished with the arrival of industrial exploitation.