ISABEL COIXET TO MAKE FILM ON ARAL SEA

Source: KAZINFORM, 29.05.2009

Isabel Coixet, the Spanish film director currently at the Cannes Film Festival with her film Map of the Sounds of Tokyo (with Dennis Hopper and Patricia Clarkson), hopes to make a documentary on the Aral Sea. Provisionally titled We Are Water, the film will focus on how one of the biggest ecological disasters of the 20th century has been partly reversed.

Known as the Kazakh Miracle, an ambitious and far-sighted recovery programme has increased the North Aral Sea’s surface by approximately 30% since the last census was conducted in 2003. The Sea’s depth also increased from a worrying 30 meters in 2003 - to 42 meters in 2008. As a consequence, the distance between the port of Aralsk and the sea shore has shrunk from a depressing 100km - to only 25km.

With the return of water, the Aral Sea’s flora and fauna are also returning. In the recent past there was only one species of fish left in the Sea but today there are a total of 15 species identified - bringing back work and money to local fishermen. Fish exportation has even restarted and two processing plants and three fish receiving centers have opened.

The Aral Sea disaster has its roots in 1956 when the Soviet Regime decided to increase its rice and cotton production, by exploiting the Amour Daria and Syr Daria Rivers, which were the main alimentation of the Aral Sea. The rivers were diverted to irrigate crops. As a consequence the Aral lost its main water sources, the sea began to shrink - and the salt-level increased.

Isabel Coixet’s latest film Map of the Sounds of Tokyo – being unveiled at Cannes on May 23rd - revolves around a suspense-laden relationship between a Spanish wine merchant played by Sergi Lopez (Pan's Labyrinth) and a fishmonger-turned-assassin portrayed by Rinko Kikuchi (Babel). The film is likely to extend Coixet's appeal, especially in Asian territories, say her Barcelona-based production house Mediapro (which is also producing the next three films by Woody Allen).

Born in Barcelona, Coixet is one of Spain’s most popular and critically acclaimed directors. Her previous films include The Secret Life of Words with Tim Robbins and Elegy with Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz.

Last year the Kazakh film ‘Tulpan’ won the prestigious ‘Un Certain Regard’ category at the Cannes Film Festival. Sergei Dvortsevoy’s feature about a young man returning to the steppe after military service, stars Kazakh actors Tulepbergen Baisakalov and Samal Eeslyamova and won several other international prizes – including, in France, the Prix de la Jeunesse and the Prix de l’Education Nationale (an award that ensured nearly 3 million French students seeing ‘Tulpan’ as part of the national school curriculum), the press service of the Kazakh Embassy in India reports.