— BY Mike Plunkett
The world’s largest salt flat, Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, is a pristine, otherworldly expanse of white. For generations, the only signs of life have been the “saleros” who harvest salt from its radiant surface. This remote region is thrust into the future when Bolivia’s leaders embark on a plan to extract a precious mineral found beneath the salt crust, and to build an infrastructure connecting the Salar to the outside world. Salero, a nonfiction feature film, is a poetic journey through the eyes of Moises, one of the last remaining salt gatherers. Set at the dawn of the modern age in one of the most secluded places on earth, Moises’ story explores how identity is formed by both tradition and progress.
When the future arrives to Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, one of the most secluded places on the planet, the destiny of this ancient salt flat is unearthed and one young salt gatherer becomes the last link between the old world and the new.
Mike Plunkett (Director and Producer) is a New York-based director, writer and editor for film and television. His short films have been shown at the Sundance Film Festival, the Queens Museum, the Director’s Guild of America, and aired on PBS. Salero is his first documentary feature film and has garnered awards from The MacArthur Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, San Francisco Film Society, and New York State Council for the Arts, among others.
Anna Rose Holmer (Producer) is one of Filmmaker Magazine‘s “25 New Faces of Independent Film 2015.” Her narrative directorial debut, The Fits (Venice International Film Festival 2015), is a selection of the Venice Biennale College and the Sundance Institute Editing Intensive Fellowship. She recently produced Jody Lee Lipes Ballet 422 (Tribeca Film Festival 2014, Magnolia Pictures). With Matt Wolf, Anna co-directed and produced A Ballet in Sneakers: Jerome Robbins and Opus Jazz, a companion film to NY Export: Opus Jazz, (PBS Great Performances/Dance in America) which was recognized with the Emerging Visions Audience Award at SXSW 2010. Anna’s first documentary feature, Twelve Ways to Sunday, was one of ten films to participate in IFP’s 2009 Documentary Filmmaker Lab and premiered at Rooftop Films in 2010. Anna is credited with her maiden name, Anna Farrell, for work created before July 2012.
Andrew David Watson (Cinematography) Andrew David Watson is a New York based Cinematographer with an emphasis on creative nonfiction and commercial projects. His past work includes editorial projects for The New Yorker and New York Times, broadcast specials for the History Channel and commercial work for top agencies such as Ogilvy, Grey & KBS+. Andrew has shot projects on five continents, over 25 countries and more than 40 states and in nearly all conditions imaginable.
Andrew Blackwell (Editor) is a film editor and journalist living in New York City. His documentary work has appeared on PBS, NBC, the BBC, the New York Times, and at the Museum of Modern Art. As a journalist, he has written for GQ, won an Emmy award for Dan Rather Reports, and published a book, titled Visit Sunny Chernobyl, about traveling to the world’s most polluted environments.
Pax Wasserman (Editor) is a film editor and producer with twenty years in features, television and documentaries. In addition to Salero, his recent work includes the 2015 Sundance winner Cartel Land, as well as Unlocking the Cage, the newest film from DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. Other past work includes Devil’s Playground, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, the Sally Mann documentary What Remains, and Which Way Home, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2009. His fiction work includes Peter Bogdanovich’s She’s Funny That Way, starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, and Noah Buschel’s directorial debut Bringing Rain.
Tom Paul (Sound Designer) is an Emmy Award winning re-recording mixer and a highly regarded sound designer. A New York City native, Tom got his start as a boom operator in 1988, moving on to production mixing in 1991. Some notable titles from his early years in production sound include: Trust, The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman, Little Odessa, Swoon and The Yards. Highlights of his sound design and re-recording credits include the Academy Award winning films The Fog of War and Born Into Brothels, Junebug, Palindromes, The Baxter, The King, and U2 360 (the largest selling concert DVD of all time). Tom received a Primetime Emmy for outstanding mixing on Joe Berlinger’s Under African Skies. He also composed and performed original piano music for a Bulgarian filmed called Avé, which was selected for competition in Critic’s Week at Cannes 2011. In 2015, Tom worked on The Wolfpack, Cartel Land, Doris (with Sally Field), and Anesthesia.
Salero is a Cinereach original production, and received support from the MacArthur Foundation, SF Film, NYSCA, and Tribeca Film Institute.