EVENTS
BLUE HEART
directed by Britton Caillouette 2018 - USA, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia sponsored by International Humar Rights Film Festival Albania
164
The Balkan Peninsula is home to the last wild rivers in Europe. However, a deluge of hydropower development threatens to destroy the culture and ecology of this forgotten region. If fierce local opposition fails, the sparkling creeks, raging tributaries and swift, braided currents of the last undamed watersheds on the continent will be corralled by more than 3,000 proposed dams. Activists, who span the shores of these rivers in six countries, and European NGOs such as Riverwatch (run by German activist Ulrich
Eichelmann) are fighting against deep government corruption and huge sums of foreign money. Our film documents the battle for the Vjosa, in Albania, the biggest undammed river in Europe; the effort to save the endangered Balkan Lynx in Macedonia; and the women of Kruščica, Bosnia, who are spearheading a monthslong, 24/7 protest to protect their community’s only source of drinking water. These and other stories properly illustrate for the first time the biggest potential environmental disaster in Europe.
