Mourning a lifelong connection to a river can take different forms. Once a clean one, it's now heavily polluted. Some try to forget it completely, even if their house is built on its borders. Others manage to live in a shack, go boating and fishing in its waters as if they still were a familiar source of food and happiness.
'R-Esistenze' (a title recalling both resistance and existence), a short documentary by Alessandro Mirai and Fabian Volti, two young Sardinian filmmakers, collects life stories of people connected to the 'Big River', the 'Riu Mannu', near the harbour of Porto Torres. On August 18th the doc premiered in a shorts competition run by the Sardinia Film Festival 2017, and was awarded an honourable mention from the young audience jury.
'Riu Mannu' is crossed by a Roman bridge 137 meters long, built on the 1st century A.D., and ends on the small beach of Marinella in the Gulf of Asinara, It was unspoilt until 1959, when the construction of a chemical pole modified the local landscape and economy. From 1961 to 1971 the population in Porto Torres had an increment of 45% (from 11,000 to 16,000). On the 'Riu Mannu' were built two new concrete bridges, a railway and a huge pipeline. The local ecosystem was completely disrupted.
The chemical pole was finally closed in 2010, bringing into demission most of the port area. Lay-off schemes were applied. Huge metallic, plastic and concrete waste were left on the river borders and the beach, as well as a dramatic chemical pollution. The lay-off of thousands of workers in 2010 was followed by the symbolic occupation, for a year, of the nearby island of Asinara, and the creation of the so-called 'Isola dei cassaintegrati', the 'Laid-off workers' island', sort of reality show which was given a high visibility in the Italian media.
Less known and virtually invisible, the protagonists of 'R-esistenze', women, men and animals, first reluctant, are now revealing their own stories.
