Castañas & Castañeros - Of Nuts and Men

We live in a world where Globalization seems to make every product available to the Western World. Most of the food is taken completely out of its historical context to produce it. No one would ever guess that a simple nut holds an entire microcosmos that evolves around it. Due to several peculiar biological dependencies it's not possible to cultivate Brazil nuts. All of them are harvested in the wild jungles of the Amazon rainforest by the so-called Castañeros. Entire families leave the cities in the Bolivian Amazon each year to travel to remote and basic jungle camps where they will live for several months to collect the nuts. They protect the trees and the rainforest surrounding them. The film takes the viewer into an unknown world of a well known consumer good. And to meet the people whose lives circle around it. From the Castañeros in the forest to the women in town cracking each nut manually in small cooperatives.