Big River Man // Big River Man
( UK / USA, 2008, 100 min. )
Director: John Maringouin
Director John Maringouin set out to make an environmentally aware documentary about an eccentric, larger-than-life Slovenian swimmer. In February 2007 Martin Strel began an insane attempt to be the first person to swim the entire length of the world’s most dangerous river, the Amazon. The Fish Man, as he was called by the local tribes, almost died in the process several times. Towards the end of his marathon ordeal his blood pressure was at heart attack level, his entire body full of subcutaneous larvae and besieged by dehydration and exhaustion. Martin is an endurance swimmer who swims rivers – the Mississippi, the Danube and the Yangtze prior to the Amazon – to highlight their pollution to the world. During this epic journey he suffered from blisters, sunburn, exotic stomach illnesses, all the while trying to avoid piranhas, anacondas, crocodiles, alligators, river sharks, and a small parasitic fish known as the candiru. Martin is also a rather overweight horse-burger loving Slovenian in his fifties, who drinks two bottles of red wine a day… even when swimming. Sundance Film Festival 2009: Award for the Best Cinematography
Film is screened in the Free Thought. Documentary cinema program
Screening shedule
– only for press
20 June
21 June
