FOR THE PARANÁ – THE DISPUTE OVER THE RIVER 5 points
(Argentina, 2023)
Direction and script: Alejo di Risio and Franco González.
Duration: 62 minutes.
Premiering exclusively at Cine Gaumont.
A review of the previous works of Franco Gonzalez He immediately reveals a close relationship with water and its natural channels: in 2013 he co-directed the documentary Uahat, the father river denied to his childrenfocusing on the complaints of various aboriginal communities regarding the lack of fish in the Pilcomayo River, and in 2019 he did the same with the fiction feature film The growing, filmed almost entirely in the Paraná delta. Now, filming with four hands together with Alejo di Risio, For the Paraná – The dispute over the river offers a look, not exempt from alarm signals, on the history and present of the so-called “Paraná-Paraguay Waterway”described on the official website of the national government as “a natural river transport corridor more than 3,400 kilometers long, which extends through the Paraná and Paraguay rivers, and allows continuous navigation between the ports of Argentina, Brazil , Bolivia Paraguay and Uruguay”.
That of González and di Risio is a classic, urgent, descriptive documentaryin which formal interests have been abandoned in favor of pure and simple information the interviews with experts on river and environmental issues and the review of the various stages of this large-scale project that has not ceased to be the subject of controversy from its very launch, during Menemism, to the present, going through governments of various tenors. The same filmmakers travel in a small boat and advance upriver, encountering a frequent and increasing problem: the increasingly deep draft of the center of the Paraná River, crossed by enormous ships loaded with tons of containers, has caused the descent of hundreds of small tributaries, making navigation increasingly arduous and, in some cases, impossible. Several islanders complain about the same situation and clearly demonstrate how constant dredging ends up “eating” several meters of coastline per year.
Complaint film, built to inform and raise awareness, Through the Paraná brings together a handful of interviewees who know a lot about the subject (among them the presence of the journalist Mempo Giardinelliwho has written for Page 12 many articles on this topic) highlight the collusion between large local and international companies, the Rosario Stock Exchange and other participants in the economically profitable game of moving more and more large vessels to other cities in the world, in to the detriment of the locals, fishermen and, of course, the ecosystems scattered throughout the basin. Because, beyond obvious issues linked to sovereignty and the flight of millions abroad, there are very sensitive issues linked to the natural balance (animal, plant, human) of thousands of kilometers of lands moistened by these waters since time immemorial.
