Salt is a quiet seasoning, making its culinary point by bringing out the best in the dish it’s been added to. The crystaline mineral is so ubiquotus that we often don’t consider its vast history in the forging (and funding) of empires. Neither do we think about the labor it takes to bring it forth from the earth and water around the world.

Indian film maker Farida Pacha has the perfectionist sensibility to share the story of the families who return to the saline desert of Gujarat’s Little Rann of Kutch to laboriously extract the salt from the desolate landscape. This seasonal migration has been going on for generations and the work is a matter of pride more than economy.

Director’s Notes: This is not a social issue film, even though the story of the salt people and their exploitation is a shocking one. What attracts me is the more fundamentally tragic question at the heart of their existence: what compels them to return to the desert to labor tediously year after year, generation after generation? What meaning do they find in this existence? Continue reading →