O cineasta da selva

When he was thirteen years old, Silvino Santos (1886-1970), who was born in Portugal, went to the Amazon plain, a part of Brazil that had deeply intrigued him from his early youth. He established himself there as a photographer and a painter and as such came into contact with the rubber barons, extremely powerful people in those days. Commissioned by one of them in 1913, he made his first film, dealing with the rubber plantations along the Putumayo River. It was the first of nine long documentaries, the making of which sometimes saw the film pioneer traversing the Amazon region for months on end. His films were successful; NO PAIZ DAS AMAZONAS from 1922 was even used as a promotional film for Brazil and shown in many places abroad. The filmmaker himself grew into an almost mythical figure. Much of the oldest footage is lost for all eternity, but O CINEASTA DA SELVA includes various preserved sequences, alternated with dramatized scenes in which the filmmaker, surrounded by the tangible memories of his past, tells about his life.