THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – MUST SEE
At night, at a gas station, a young man fills up his car with gas. At the wheel, with his face covered by the hood, he explains that “People here are afraid to speak”. From the window of the vehicle, a huge petrochemical plant outlines a futuristic landscape. These are the first images of Toxicityby 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 centres in Europe has been polluting the territory since its creation in the 1950s. Toxicitywe heard “ Sicily », Sicily, whose tourist charms we quickly forget here. At first, the arrival of the oil refinery and the large pipelines transporting black gold was seen as a blessing for the local population. Then, soil pollution, the discovery of deformed fish by fishermen and diseases contracted by residents transformed this stretch of coast into an ecological and health nightmare.
On the 28th of each month, the parish priest, Don Palmiro, offers a mass in memory of the deceased: employees who succumbed to cancer, babies who were victims of birth defects, etc. Other people live with a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, like this young woman who suffered stomach pains and does not know if she will be able to have children in the future.
However, apart from specific information sites and attempts at mobilisation, the ecological disaster in Augusta is poorly documented. Is it pressure from the mafia, or fear of losing one’s job, because it is not uncommon for parents to pass on their jobs to their children? One sentence you hear sends shivers down your spine: “It is better to die of cancer than of hunger.” Children still speak spontaneously, like this boy whose father works in the petrochemical group. To his mother who suggests that he go and visit the factory where “Dad works”He stubbornly answers: “No, I don’t want to die.”
confiscated word
The directors decided to structure the film around this confiscated word, while taking the time to get to know the local actors. A historian by training, François-Xavier Destors is the author of several investigative documentaries: Rwanda, the penalty area (2014), and Norilsk, the frozen embrace (2018), an investigation into an ancient 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, the age of disaster. Industrial disasters and their imaginations (Ed. 205, 2023).
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