Confidences from the River of Deaths

Confidences From The River of Deaths is an intimate documentary which attempts to analyze the relationship of man and environment, work and history through oral history, passed on from generation to generation. A picture of what is left, in fact and in the imagination of the surviving population in the cities, villages, quilombos (the hiding places of Negro fugitives and rebel slaves) and Indian villages at 'Rio das Mortes' (River of Deaths), a gold mining front in Minas Gerais, Brazil. The narrative attempts to clarify the relationship between the past and present of the characters, portrayers of this colonization front, marked by gold and stained by blood. Trace the route of the old mining trail, opened by Portuguese settlers in search of the hidden treasurers of Jose Maria dos Santos, the last gold miner in 'Serra do Lenheiro', who lived for eight years as a slave and carries in his soul the injuries suffered by his ancestors buried in the mines in search of gold for their lords. Visit abandoned monuments, such as churches covered up by gold, ruins of stone walls constructed by the slaves, caves that became hiding places for primitive tribes and old slave quarters where Negroes lived during the time of slavery and after it ended in 1889.