At the end of August we assisted, in association with the Secretary of Tourism of Santarem, a team from National Geographic, taking the crew to as many places around the Tapajos River as exist linked to the history of Rubber. Starting with the floodplain Maica in the East of Santarem to the great Fordlandia 200 miles away from the town, we did the whole trip by car (taking into consideration that it's possible to take a speedboat). Through the forest, Santarem-Cuiaba highway, Transamazonia, Transfordlandia, we finally got there - to the legendary town that Henry Ford built in the heart of the Amazon. In four days of research, we not only helped the photographer Richard Barnes get the images he wanted, but also got a "byproduct" of the trip - a documentary about the native Fordlandian Valdiro Castro, who now lives in Santarem, but agreed to be our guide in his hometown as well as to tell the stories of his childhood in this most remarkable place of Ford's creation. With Jose Otavio Junges as director, Karim Abu Bakr as producer, and Rodrigo Nunes as cameraman, and with the craziest driver on Earth, we were just awarded the Grand Prix of the Film Festival of FIT in Santarem with the short version of the movie.
It is still in Portuguese, but can give you an idea of what it feels like to make a lifetime trip to such an incredible place. We are now working on the full-length version of the film (bilingual), so we will keep you posted!
P.S. Yes, we went to Fordlandia in a Ford car (through the craziest routes in the world)!
Please watch the short documentary by clicking here
It is still in Portuguese, but can give you an idea of what it feels like to make a lifetime trip to such an incredible place. We are now working on the full-length version of the film (bilingual), so we will keep you posted!
P.S. Yes, we went to Fordlandia in a Ford car (through the craziest routes in the world)!
Please watch the short documentary by clicking here
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