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The greatest catastrophe in the history of Brazil cannot be forgotten. Reducing this tragedy to mere data is to disregard the suffering of a people; it is to belittle a calamity that made the story of two million lives bleed. A story that is now studied by touching bones and rubble. A story that can be smelled — the smell of our dead. The smell of pasts and futures submerged in mud.
We will not allow the memory of the disaster that struck Rio Grande do Sul to be erased. The floods left traces of war. On the walls, we still see marks more than five meters high. The debris, the thousands of displaced families, the cries of animals, the children left without provisions — everything seems to have been eternalized by grief.
And yet, nothing is guaranteed. For even pain, when left unpreserved, runs the risk of dissolving. The trenches, the graves, and the marks on the cities themselves prove this: without an active effort to keep this memory alive and accessible, we allow time to turn the greatest tragedy of southern Brazil into yet another victim of the forgetfulness that has already devoured, without scruple, our heroes and our geniuses.
The magnitude of this tragedy remains immeasurable. There is still much submerged that prevents us from grasping the true gravity of what happened. And the intensity of this absurdity must remain engraved in our hearts: both to honor the lives that were lost and to ennoble the courage of those who gave themselves to others, even when they themselves were the ones in need of help.
It was in this spirit that Lumine, as a company born in the south, chose to plunge into the chaos in order to tell this story from beginning to end.
Water Memory is a portrait of what many did not survive to narrate; it is the synthesis of the strength of a people who, long forged by bravery, migration, tireless work, and a faith passed from generation to generation, now had to reclaim that same spirit to face a new kind of beginning — harsh, unexpected, and yet met with courage.
Since its founding, Lumine has carried the commitment to tell stories that inspire faith and hope — stories the world needs to hear. And during the floods of 2024, this commitment ceased to be merely a mission and became a duty.
While Rio Grande do Sul was still underwater, with roads cut off and entire cities isolated, Lumine publicly announced that it would produce the documentary. At that moment, hundreds of people sent in videos documenting the tragedy in the first person: entire families waiting for rescue on rooftops, improvised boats, and task forces formed to save the lives of strangers. Gestures upon gestures of solidarity that showed us, amid all of it, not only despair but what it truly means to be human.
For weeks, our team walked through a territory that was no longer a territory — it was water. Borders disappeared, streets lost their names, and what once was a city became a continuous expanse of silence, suspension, anguish, and waiting. It was not a matter of crossing a landscape but of participating in an event. To record that moment required being inside it: while the waters still confused the inside and the outside, while everything remained out of place, while an entire life seemed to have been diluted into the same brown hue.
The video became known as the Water Memory Manifesto and can be viewed at the link below:
There were 35 locations, 10 cities, 22 shooting days, and one aerial flight over Veranópolis to understand — from above — the scale of what the earth alone could no longer express. And more than 100 recordings sent by local residents themselves, fragments of a memory that needed to be shared so as not to be lost amid the daily life that, even in tragedy, continued for others elsewhere.
Lumine was also struck. Part of its headquarters was taken by the water; equipment was lost; team members closely followed the impact on their own families. For this reason, Water Memory was not born as a film about an event but as a film inside it. It carries within itself the perspective of those who, at the same time, documented and were documented by the experience.
Today, more than a year later, the film is complete and begins its journey through festivals — not as a work that observes a distant past, but as an invitation to contemplate a memory that still moves, like the water itself.
Credits
DIRECTORS & WRITERS
Gustavo Leite
Matheus Bazzo
NARRATION
Felipe Vieira
INTERVIEWEES
Pe. Lucas Matheus Mendes
João Marcos Otto
Thomas Giuliano
Lucia Lorenzetti
Sonia Maria Maffessoni
Dona Naldi
Henrique Fagundes
Sara Ribas
Jane
Luis Carlos Bordins
Maxoel Rodrigues da Rocha
Cris Machado
Pr. Lucas Kommers
Samuel Hartmann Leopardo
Sandro Frederico Silva dos Santos
Dona Guerta
Moisés Ruschel
Dr. Álvaro Fernandes
Olir Paulo Rossi
Ildo Luis Lando
Paulo Rogério da Silva
Fabiane Johanson
Bianca Calvanholi
Amanda Calvanholi Andreotti
Dona Zita
Vandir Arthur Arcâmpora de Oliveira
Pe. Fabiano Glaeser dos Santos
Geise Devit
Fabiano Ávila Teixeira
Pedro Teixeira and siblings (children of Geise and Fabiano)
Carlos André Bulhões
Klaus Silveira Weber
Thai
Felipe
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Matheus Bazzo
Arthur Gonçalves
PRODUCTION
Janaína Martins
Eduardo Lorenzetti
Jordana Bastos
Aline Marques
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Gustavo Leite
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Bruno Dall’Alba
CAMERA
Bruno Dall’Alba
Douglas Patrick
Luis Pais
Manuel Surreaux
DRONE
Samuel Hartmann Leopardo
IMAGES
Muriel Guimarães
João Marcos Otto
Cris Machado
SOUND RECORDING
Bruno Dall’Alba
Eliana “Nina” Ruth de Souza
ORIGINAL SCORE
Fernando Arruda
AUDIO MIXING
Pavel Tavares
EDITING
Pavel Tavares
COLOR GRADING
Gustavo Leite
POST-PRODUCTION
Pavel Tavares
VISUAL IDENTITY
Anna Gabriela Rozante
SPECIAL THANKS
This documentary is dedicated to all those affected by the tragedy of the 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul. May this work preserve the memory of what must not be forgotten. In a special way, we dedicate this film to each team member of Lumine and Minha Biblioteca Católica who, even amid pain and chaos, remained steadfast, creative, generous, and willing. To them, our profound gratitude.
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