LA TIERRA ROJA

While the interests of the major Western powers in South America are no secret, their political, economic and environmental depredations are not so well known. In this fourth feature, Argentinian director Diego Martinez Vignatti, who has lived in Brussels for 20 years, tackles this hot topic head-on. Deep in the Amazon rain forest, on the Argentinian side of the Brazilian border, Pierre, a Belgian employee of a multinational paper company, cuts, burns and bulldozes; illegally harvests exotic wood; blankets the forest with toxic chemicals. It’s his job, and he does it without a second thought. On weekends, he coaches an amateur rugby team and carries on a love affair with a young teacher. But the contamination of fertile ground and his exploitative ways start to have too many victims. A revolt is brewing, and Pierre will be trapped between his work, his workers, his love and his own ideals. This eco-western plunges us into the life of an ordinary man who is forced by circumstances to swap his very comfortable and somewhat absurd expat life for that of a guerrilla. Mafia, corruption, union battles: La Tierra roja is a true activist film like the ones they used to make in the 70s, but it’s set in today’s Argentina. Melodrama in the time of unfettered capitalism.