The documentary “The Safest Place in the World”, which deals with the tragedy of the dam failure in Mariana (MG), has just won the award from the jury of the international competition at the DocLisboa festival, in Portugal.
In November 2015, the collapse of the dam of Samarco, a joint venture between Vale and the Anglo-Australian mining company BHP, caused a “tsunami” of mud that left 19 people dead and a trail of social and environmental destruction.
The award-winning film, directed by Brazilians Helena Wolfenson and Aline Lata, presents Mariana’s disaster through the story of Marlon: a young man who sees his life completely transformed when he becomes a victim of the catastrophe.
Forced to move from the countryside to the outskirts of the city, Marlon faces new conflicts and is witness to another tragedy linked to mining in Brazil: the rupture of the Brumadinho dam, also in Minas Gerais, which left 272 dead in January 2019.
It took more than five years to follow the life of Marlon and other residents of Bento Rodrigues, a district of Mariana next to the dam and which was completely devastated by the wave of mud.
“The film talks a lot about home, about belonging and about the great injustices of everything that happened, the negligence of the mining companies. Marlon is always fighting, including for the right to be in Bento Rodrigues’ house. His house is one that wasn’t directly hit by the mud, but was isolated by it. The house is there with the entire city destroyed around it”, says Aline Lata.
The title, “The Safest Place in the World”, refers to the current situation in the district: surrounded by cameras, monitored by Samarco security guards and attempts to restrict access.
“Before the tragedy, there was none of that. There was no security camera, no siren. That’s why everyone had to run out of the house, with a lot of risks, without any kind of warning. Now it has all kinds of security. The name of the movie has a lot to do with it. It’s a speech by Marlon, a reflection on the place he would like to return to, which is his home, which has become the safest place in the world. There is this side that is important to talk about, which is the company’s appropriation of something that is not its own”, adds Aline Lata.
The finished version of the documentary made its world premiere in Lisbon.
“It was very surprising and at the same time very positive. We had not yet come out with the film to the world, we did not know how it would resonate in other realities, in people who had never heard of this tragedy and this condition that we live in Brazil, of having so many tragedies that happen almost daily ”, says Helena Wolfenson.
Wolfenson says that the film took a slightly different path from the traditional one.
“It happened a bit in the opposite direction of many films, which is to have a pre-script and a plan and, from there, to go into development. We went a bit for the opposite. Me and Aline were taken to Mariana for different reasons and we connected there. We knew each other briefly from São Paulo, but we had no ideas of making this film. We met Marlon and their friends, and things started to happen”, he adds.
The film does not yet have a release date in Brazil, but it should participate in Brazilian festivals in the coming months.
