TOBACCO

PRECARIOUS PORTRAITS

COMMENT

This micro-documentary was made during the filming of another documentary, "Battle of Salta," directed by Andrés Cuervo for the Encuentro channel.

We were traveling through the province in a pickup truck. It was siesta time in Salta when I saw a gang of no more than 20 men, loaded down with bundles of leaves, emerging from a tobacco plantation like moles.

I automatically asked the driver to slow down, and Andrés and Manuel Forbes to give me a hand. We didn't have much time, so in about 40 minutes we captured the images that would later become this beautiful, contemplative micro-documentary about tobacco harvesting.