Yasuni Man film is an intimate portrait of a beautiful land under siege for its oil
Yasuni Man film is an intimate portrait of a beautiful land under siege for its oil
US biologist Ryan Killackey spent seven years filming a polemical account of a remote forest community under pressure from US and Chinese oil companies
Jonathan Watts Latin America correspondent
Wednesday 12 October 2016 06.00 EDT
Watching a film-maker use tweezers to extract wriggling, inch-long Amazonian parasites from his bloody leg would normally rank among the more stomach-churning of cinematic experiences, but it is a mere sideshow in a new documentary that shows Ecuador’s most famous nature reserve faces far graver threats than it poses.
Over the past seven years, US biologist Ryan Killackey has endured bot fly larvae, dysentery, bullet ant stings and malignant melanoma in order to film an intimate and polemical account of a remote forest community under pressure from US and Chinese oil companies.
The result is Yasuni Man, a 90-minute record of a stunningly beautiful region believed to be one of the most biodiverse on the planet at a particularly troubled time in its history.
It focuses on the Yasuni biosphere reserve, which inspired hope around the world in 2007 when the Ecuadorian government announced a global fundraising drive for its protection against mining firms.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/12/yasuni-man-film-ecuador-ryan-killackey
