THE BOATMAN
A Super-8 portrait of a boatman in Buenos Aires as he plies his trade crossing one of the most polluted rivers in the world. So much can change in a lifetime....or five. El Colchon, 'The Mattress', is a boatman with 40 years experience rowing people back and forth the five minutes it takes to cross the Riachuelo in Buenos Aires. From grandfather to grandson, his family have crossed the same tiny stretch of water for five generations and over a hundred years. El Colchon was ''born on the banks of the Riachuelo''. He dreams of when he went swimming and fishing as a boy as he rows across one of the most polluted rivers in the world. A once beautiful landscape became an industrial port, and the river is now a blackened forgotten cesspit. Still the boatman plies his trade, charging 50 centavos to cross between La Boca and Isla Maciel in the most dangerous part of town. El Colchon is a warm chatty man known by everybody, and a powerful witness to a century of human development in one small place.
Shown at: Festival of Visual Culture, FINLAND; Strawberry Super8 Film Festival, UK; Tehran International Film Festival, IRAN