Araya: A Film Restored, A Director Revered (October 2009) Araya Film Trailer Araya Theater Screenings Calendar of Latino Film Festivals 2009-2010 More in Entertainment

Shot in dazzling, high-contrast black and white, Araya is the documentary as poetry, as altered reality. Using staged footage in real locations, the film tells the story of people living on the barren Araya peninsula in northern Venezuela, a vast salt marsh where nothing grows and where fishing and salt mining provide the only means of subsistence.

It’s a brutal life, and director Margot Benacerraf shows it to us through one day in the comings and goings of three families, two who work in the salt industry, the other which subsists on the proceeds from their daily catch of fish.

Featuring a narration that emphasizes the eternal nature of the work, the baking sun, and the gifts of the sea, Araya is a fascinating blend of cri-de-coeur, agitprop, and humanistic filmmaking. The images, influenced by Italian neo-realist cinema and the documentaries of Robert Flaherty, shimmer with barren beauty, and the film is edited to emphasize the dreary nature of quotidian life and the humanity of the Arayan people.