A film by Maria Augusta Ramos
A NOFOCO FILMES Production, Brazil 2015
In SECA, Maria Ramos leaves the claustrophobic environments that marked her latest work (Justice, Behave, Hill of Pleasures) to embrace the breadth of the arid landscape of the Brazilian Sertão. The camera accompanies a water truck through several villages while it supplies the local population with water. The result is a documentary road movie full of powerful images, captured in cinemascope.
But the director does not leave her sharp eye, built by long takes, which allows an immersion in the time and space inhabited by her characters, while showing some revealing aspects of the “drought industry” (“Water here is gold”, says one of the characters; “Water for the people or for half a dozen rich farmers’ cattle?” asks the other)
Remaining faithful to the documentary style, Drought is a breath of renewal in the work of the filmmaker who remains strict and critical, but makes use of new tools to achieve her goals.
SECA takes up an extremely pressing issue: water scarcity, observed in a region of Brazil where the population is exposed to this endemic problem.