I AM THE RIVER, THE RIVER IS ME
Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand 2023.
89 minutes
directed by: Petr Lom
The Whanganui River in New Zealand is the first river in the world to be given the legal status of a person, a living and indivisible being. This happened in 2017 and confirmed the belief and philosophy of the Maoris who perceive nature as their ancestor, believing that it is our duty to take care of it while we are on Earth, and that further care is taken over by our descendants. It is inadmissible to treat nature as private property, nor to exploit it for gaining profit.
This film, which celebrates the Whanganui River and affirms its status, is shaped as a travelogue in which, a group of river guests sail canoes on a five-day indulgence in the pleasure of being carried by its currents and residing on its banks led by the river's keeper, a Maori community leader. The film introduces us to the almost hypnotic water flows on which the canoes slide and the passengers, amazed by this adventure, sail in them. The camera reveals the beauty of wooded shores, of creatures from land and water, who move together with film heroes through the paradise preserved here. We enjoy the symphony of nature's sounds, as well as the gathering of devotees who will be able to express their thoughts and wishes under the auspices of the great and powerful Wanganui, to talk about their dreams of preserving nature as an invaluable treasure of our planet.
We also get to know the spiritual being of the Maori people through the music of composer Puoro Jerome, a two-time winner of the Grammy Award, an artist who has given concerts all over the world from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House, known for performing his compositions on traditional Maori instruments. On the banks of the Whanganui River, we also see him, surrendering to the nature that surrounds him, playing while composing the music for this film.
Fifteen years dedicated to the topics of human rights, and now to the rights of nature, producer Corinne van Egeraat and director Petr Lom, lead us to the end of the world with a film that they believe has the power to change us, "to expand our hearts and inspire us to embody our better selves."
They are an internationally recognized filmmaking couple whose award-winning work has premiered at Berlin, Venice, IDFA and Sundance and has screened at over 450 festivals around the world and broadcast in more than 30 countries. They are driven by the need for creative storytelling in the service of movies that matter. Specializing in urgent stories that reflect their values of dedication to justice, they work from a deep place of humility and generosity seeing storytelling as form of love and friendship, an act of giving and sharing. Their goal is ego-less filmmaking, that itself is a political act: collaboration without competition, made in the faith that cinema has a transformative power to enlarge our hearts and inspire us to embody our better selves. Since the last seven years, they have also expanded their focus to work on stories of climate justice. They are both members of the Academy of Motion Picture Art & Sciences.
