91. Pierre Heistein: Recording the story of the Atuel River

Access to Inspiration

Pierre Heistein talks to Brendan Davis, from episode 58, about the documentary film he made telling the story of Atuel River in Mendoza region, Argentina.
In 2020 there were protests against the overturning of a water protection law that had successfully kept water-intensive mining projects out of the Mendoza province, the largest wine-producing region in Latin America that gets water from the Atuel River.
Pierre and two others decided to trace the route of the river from high up in the Andes to its end in the Cuyo Desert, becoming the first to do so, and recording perspectives of local people who engage with the river in different ways. The resulting documentary received an overwhelmingly positive response from the local community and has caused Pierre to reflect on society’s pace of life, reliance on, and connectedness to nature.
About Pierre Heistein
Pierre believes that we really are capable of creating more harmonious relationships with each other and the natural world that supports us. He contributes to this through photography, entrepreneurship, teaching, and fatherhood.
Find out more at: ATUEL Documentary Spanish version and Instagram
Email: Pierre DOT Heistein @ Gmail.com
Connect with Brendan Davis https://www.crazyinagoodway.com
Key Quotes

• We felt that it was very important to make the river the main subject, the protagonist of this
  film.
• We were forced to move at the river’s pace and we were forced to move at the pace of nature itself.
• It made me reflect on how to work better, how to live better, how to produce better and to do so at a far more natural pace of ebb and flow of passion and rest.
• I think the river just taught me that just how to ebb and flow, how to speed up, slow down, go stop and really integrate that into the rest of my life
• We are a manmade oasis in the middle of the desert, it is impossible to live here without having a deep connection to the river.
• Our little planet earth in this immense of expansive space is the only place we can live. And we depend on it. And if we don’t look after it, we’re probably not gonna be able to live here, at least with not any level of quality of life.
• It has made me really question, what am I working towards and reminded me to, to just always be very conscious of the jobs I seek and understand why.
• We are not here to serve nature. Nature’s not here to serve us. It’s a relationship. and just like any relationship in our lives, it needs to be as healthy as possible.

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Sound Editor: Matias de Ezcurra (he/him). Producer: Sue Stockdale (she/her)
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