13/02/2006

Hubert Sauper’s Oscar-nominated documentary Darwin’s Nightmarewill be out in Italian cinemas next March 3. The film analyses the problems of globalization and capitalism through Third World poverty and forgotten wars.

The director takes as metaphor Lake Victoria, into which a new species of fish was introduced in the 1960s, as part of a scientific experiment. As a result, this “Nile perch” caused the extinction of nearly every type of local fish in a short period of time. This voracious, sweet-water predator multiplied so quickly that its white meat is now exported throughout the world. Enormous ex-Soviet cargo planes land in the area every day to fill up with the daily load of fish and unload their goods: Kalashnikov rifles and munitions for the numerous wars that are being fought in the heart of the African continent.

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Sauper explains that the upsurge in food and arms multinationals has created a diabolical global alliance on the banks of the largest tropical lake in the world: an army of young fishermen, Indian farmers, African ministers, European commissioners, Russian pilots and Tanzanian prostitutes. Born in Austria, the director lives between the UK, Italy and the US. Ha studied at Vienna’s University of Performing Arts and the Universite de Paris VIII, and currently teaches filmmaking in the US. His earlier documentaries won many prizes at international festivals. Darwin’s Nightmare was co-produced by Mille et une production (France), Coop 99 (Austria) and Saga Film (Belgium).

(Translated from Italian)