THE OPINION OF “THE WORLD” – TO SEE
At a gas station at night, a young man puts gas in his car. At the wheel, his face eaten by the hood, he explains that “People here are afraid to speak out”. From the vehicle window, a huge petrochemical site draws a futuristic landscape. These are the first images of Toxiclyby François-Xavier Destors and Alfonso Pinto, a feverish documentary, halfway between an investigative film and a dystopia.
We are in Sicily (Italy), north of Syracuse, in Augusta, where one of the largest industrial centers in Europe has been polluting the territory since its establishment in the 1950s. Toxiclywe hear ” Sicily “, Sicily, whose tourist charms are quickly forgotten here. Initially, the arrival of the oil refinery and the large pipes carrying the black gold was seen as a godsend by the local population. Then, soil pollution, the discovery of deformed fish by fishermen and diseases contracted by the inhabitants transformed this stretch of coast into an ecological and health nightmare.
On the 28th of each month, the parish priest, Don Palmiro, gives a mass in memory of the dead – employees who have succumbed to cancer, babies with malformations, etc. Other people live with a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, like this young girl who suffered from stomach aches and does not know if she will be able to have children later.
Yet, outside of targeted news sites and attempts at mobilization, the ecological disaster in Augusta is poorly documented. Is it pressure from the Mafia, the fear of losing one’s job – because it is not uncommon for fathers to pass on their position to their sons? One sentence heard sends shivers down one’s spine: “It is better to die of cancer than of hunger.” Children still speak spontaneously, like this little boy whose father is employed by the petrochemical group. To his mother who suggests he go visit the factory where “work dad”he stubbornly replies: “No, I don’t want to die.”
Confiscated Word
The directors chose to structure the film around this confiscated speech, while taking the time to get to know the local actors. A historian by training, François-Xavier Destors has directed several investigative documentaries: Rwanda, the penalty area (2014), and Norilsk, the ice embrace (2018), an investigation into a former gulag controlled with an iron fist by copper and nickel producers. Researcher and Sicilian, originally from Palermo, Alfonso Pinto is the author of the essay Anthropocene, age of disaster. Industrial disasters and their imaginaries (Ed. 205, 2023).
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