Veins of the Amazon, Directors Terje Toomitu, Alvaro Sarmiento, & Diego Sarmiento. In the Peruvian Amazon, the main means of transport for goods and people since the time of the rubber boom and the infamous adventures of Fitzcarraldo are the ferries navigating the majestic Amazon River. Today the ferries bear products from the global market place in exchange for “exotic” goods from the jungle. Yet the ferries also form a distinct space of transition for the travelers taking a journey that may last for weeks, for the crew, and for the indigenous peoples living on the edges of the Amazon.

This stunningly beautiful, observational documentary bears witness to the controversies in the axes of accelerating modernity and the hybrid states of local experiential realities on the world’s largest river. The camera opens a window to this journey down the Amazon: the loading and unloading of goods, materials, livestock, ideas, technology, and the trappings of modernity; the work of the crew; passengers tending to their children or conversing from hammock to hammock; and people waiting on the banks. The film is but one example of the consequences – intended and unintended – of contact between indigenous cultures and outside influences that has occurred (and is still occurring) around the world. In Spanish with English subtitles. (HDPeru, 72 minutes, 2021).

Following the film, please join IIIRM for a discussion/Q&A on the challenges of identifying and preparing for the consequences of such contact with
Bill Thomas, Senior Advisor for Islands, Indigenous and International Issues, NOAA Office for Coastal Management
and Mervyn Tano, President, IIIRM.

Free, RSVP NOT required. Seating on first come basis.