| Thursday, 14 July 2016 00:00 |
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Locarno IFF: Sea Tomorrow by Katerina Suvorova from Kazakhstan
Room for the documentary La Semaine de la Critique
Sea Tomorrow – Katerina Suvorova – prima mondiale
Nearly twice as large as Switzerland, the Aral Sea was still among the four largest ones on the planet in 1960. Unfortunately, overreliance on its tributaries Amu Darya and Sry Daria for agriculture has completely dried it up. Actually, it’s exactly what plans made by the former USSR had predicted, since the resulting marshes were to be used for rice culture. Now only 17,000 km², the Aral Sea is but a big pond. The boats that had previously played an important role in the region’s economic prosperity now lie still in the sand like beached whales. The desert of salt that has replaced it is a hostile, unusable land. And yet not everybody has given up – fishermen, farmers, biologists, and even a few pirates, still believe the sea can rise again. They all fight for a better tomorrow.
Kazakh director Katerina Suvorova, who grew up in Almaty, only knew of the historical and natural tragedy of her country through the media. She really discovered the truth only when working on her documentary. When she got there, she found a place that comes straight out of a post-apocalyptic story, as she describes it herself. It is a hostile, polluted wasteland that reminds her of “Mad Max”. The people who live there repurposed the old ships and must fight against the mills like modern Don Quixotes. Some of them even try to clear out small patches of land. The will of the people is the only resource that has not been drained out. In the grey, dusty desert, the blue hull of the boats shines like a glimmer of hope.
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