THE CHARCOAL PEOPLE OF BRAZIL
Marcos Prado met the charcoal workers for the first time in 1991. The overwhelming image of the heavy physical labour with which the fuel for iron and steel factories is produced would not let him go. For seven years Prado travelled from Minas Gerais on the east coast of Brazil to deep in the Amazon jungles in order to trace the story of these workers. Fathers and sons often work and live generation after generation under miserable circumstances. Children have no perspective of another future than following their fathers in the charcoal industry. Prado was able to catch both the hard reality of their existence and their dignity in impressive images and probing portraits. THE CHARCOAL PEOPLE OF BRAZIL (1999) is a severe indictment against slaver, child labour and the destruction of the rain forests of Brazil.
