The River Runs Red

Synopsis

The River Runs Red is an interactive documentary exploring Brazil’s worst environmental disaster, and the world’s largest tailings spill ever recorded. On November 5, 2015, the foundations of an iron ore tailings dam from an iron mine in Bento Rodrigues, Brazil, suddenly cracked. Located at the top of a river, 60 million cubic tons of toxic sludge rushed down the Rio Doce, “The Sweet River.” Drowning two towns completely, the mud then made a 17 day march, 530 miles downstream until it spilled into the Atlantic Ocean. Deeply poisoning the water, this disaster effectively remapped an entire ecosystem. Through a poetic dialectic, “The River Runs Red” is an interactive documentary which decenters the human and looks at the more-than-human livability possible in the anthropocene.

Runtime

0:13:46

Nominations

Digital Media

Creative Team

Director(s)

Isabelle Carbonell

Producers(s)

Lucas Bonetti

Post-Secondary Institution

University of California, Santa Cruz