“Flowing with intrigue, beauty and brutality, Bolivian writer-director Juan Pablo Richter’s feature debut transports us to a seemingly placid rural locale where a teenage boy gets pulled into dangerous waters. Sebastián leaves a fraught situation in the city to live with his long-estranged father Raphael, who resides on a ranch adjacent to a jungle-lined river. Sebastián is a scrapper, and Raphael seeks to channel those unruly energies through activities like hunting. But as life in this pastoral setting begins to reveal its true nature, Sebastián finds himself struggling against a current of corruption, humiliation and violence in which women are currency. Eschewing stylistic pyrotechnics in favor of eerily mounting tensions, Richter proves himself a keen observer of toxic masculine codes and the bracing velocity with which innocence can suddenly be washed away.” —Miami Film Festival
THE RIVER / EL RÍO
A film Juan Pablo Richter
(Bolivia/Ecuador, 2018, 92 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Now streaming on YouTube, Google Play, Apple TV, Amazon Prime
Watch the trailer:
