Coming to NYC’s Cinema Village this Friday, June 8: PATAGONIA RISING
Brian Lilla’s investigation into a controversial Chilean hydroelectric plan premiered at Newport Beach last year. Additional stops on the festival circuit included, among others, the Hot Springs and San Francisco Documentary fests, and Chile’s Valdivia, Cine Otro, and Cine de la Patagonia Aysen, wining awards at the latter two.
Chile’s isolated Patagonian region is home to the Baker and Pascua, two glacier-fed rivers that provide for the region’s biodiversity. When the Spanish company Endsea proposes an ambitious hydroelectric project – the construction of five large dams – they promise a surplus of “clean” energy which can benefit Chile. Among the downsides, familiar to viewers who have seen films like UP THE YANGTZE: flooded regions, displaced inhabitants, and the potential unbalancing of the area’s ecosystem. Lilla talks to the gauchos and other residents of the region, contrasting their anxieties about this radical change to their homes with the corporate-speak reassurances of Endsea’s representative. The engaging doc also explores alternative, lower-impact sources of energy that may prove better solutions to the country’s energy needs, if only the interest of global profit above all else is able to be held in check.
what (not) to doc 