House of Sand and Fog

House of Sand and Fog may refer to:

The House of Sand

The House of Sand (Portuguese: Casa de Areia) is a 2005 Brazilian film directed by Andrucha Waddington. It stars real life mother and daughter Fernanda Montenegro and Fernanda Torres. The House of Sand was filmed entirely on the coast of northern Brazil, inside Lençóis Maranhenses National Park.

Plot

In 1910, pregnant Áurea (Torres) along with her mother, Maria (Montenegro) arrive at a remote, desert-like part of the Brazilian state of Maranhão—called the Lençóis Maranhenses—where her fanatical husband Vasco de Sá (Ruy Guerra) has relocated the family from the state's capital, São Luís, to start a farm. Soon the white settlers realize that they are not alone: a group of descendants of runaway slaves live in the area, in a settlement—generally known as a quilombo—they call "The Island" because it is the only permanently fertile spot in a sea of sand where it rains only during the rainy season. Due to the madness of Vasco, Maria seeks to bribe the black settlers to take her and her daughter away, but they, while taking her money (it is basically useless in the local barter economy), do no such thing.

Ben Kingsley

Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an English actor. In a career spanning over 40 years, he has won an Oscar, Grammy, BAFTA, two Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild awards. He is known for his starring role as Mohandas Gandhi in the 1982 film Gandhi, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He is also known for his performances in the films Schindler's List (1993), Sexy Beast (2000), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Shutter Island (2010), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), Hugo (2011), and Iron Man 3 (2013). Kingsley was made a Knight Bachelor in 2002. In 2010, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2013 he received the BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment.

Early life

Kingsley was born Krishna Bhanji in Snainton, North Riding of Yorkshire. He is the son of Anna Lyna Mary (born Goodman; 1914–2010), an actress and model who appeared in films in the 1920s and 1930s, and Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji (1914–1968), a medical doctor.

Sand

Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles. It is defined by size, being finer than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of soil or soil type; i.e. a soil containing more than 85% sand-sized particles (by mass).

The composition of sand varies, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal settings is silica (silicon dioxide, or SiO₂), usually in the form of quartz. The second most common type of sand is calcium carbonate, for example aragonite, which has mostly been created, over the past half billion years, by various forms of life, like coral and shellfish. It is, for example, the primary form of sand apparent in areas where reefs have dominated the ecosystem for millions of years like the Caribbean.

Composition

In terms of particle size as used by geologists, sand particles range in diameter from 0.0625 mm (or ¹⁄₁₆ mm) to 2 mm. An individual particle in this range size is termed a sand grain. Sand grains are between gravel (with particles ranging from 2 mm up to 64 mm) and silt (particles smaller than 0.0625 mm down to 0.004 mm). The size specification between sand and gravel has remained constant for more than a century, but particle diameters as small as 0.02 mm were considered sand under the Albert Atterberg standard in use during the early 20th century. A 1953 engineering standard published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials set the minimum sand size at 0.074 mm. A 1938 specification of the United States Department of Agriculture was 0.05 mm. Sand feels gritty when rubbed between the fingers (silt, by comparison, feels like flour).

House

A house is a building that functions as a home, ranging from simple dwellings such as rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes and the improvised shacks in shantytowns to complex, fixed structures of wood, brick, marble or other materials containing plumbing, ventilation and electrical systems. Most conventional modern houses in Western cultures will contain a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock (like cattle) may share part of the house with humans. The social unit that lives in a house is known as a household. Most commonly, a household is a family unit of some kind, although households may also be other social groups or individuals. The design and structure of the house is also subject to change as a consequence of globalization, urbanization and other social, economic, demographic, and technological reasons. Various other cultural factors also influence the building style and patterns of domestic space.