Eldorado

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Note of intent

Since 2013, Northern Patagonia has become the promised land for Argentinian nationalism and oil companies. Today, the industry has established itself in this region of peasant farmers. The question is, knowing what is going to become of the populations. The film portrays a popular portrait of this new Eldorado through five characters: migrant workers, Patagonian peasants and Mapuche Indians. It is my intention to show the struggle for power, individual aspirations and freedom, in this great geopolitical theatre.

Synopsis

The conquest for Northern Patagonian oil has begun. Attracted by promises of work and prosperity, pioneer workers are gathering. Companies are moving in, dividing the steppe into sections, occupying the villages and the media. A hierarchy of power is rapidly being put in place. In this modern Far West, where tradition encounters industrial capitalism, the population is starting to develop a struggle for power with the oil world. The pioneers will only succeed in this Eldorado, if they are prepared to conform. For the Gaucho or Mapuche peasants, two horizons lie ahead: either they rent their land to oil giants, or they put up resistance. Five people are caught up in this march of history. In this strange Patagonian Eldorado, what can they hope for? Should they change, adapt or comply? It is precisely in these times of swaying uncertainty and choices to be made, that the film is set.

Visual concept

Five portraits, intertwined, bring to light one same story, that of the human condition in this oil Eldorado. The sequence shots accompany the characters in situation, men and women filmed at eye level, sometimes in direct dialogue with the camera. Inspired by the mythology of the conquest of the West, this film picks up the cinematographic ingredients of the Far West. Desert and vertiginous scenery highlighted by wide angle and still shots, a sonorous universe marked by the contrast of the silence of the steppe and this industrial ballet.