Suquía

If a river were a character in a film, what would it see and think? Ezequiel Salinas literally gives a voice to the Suquía, the river that passes through the Argentine city of Córdoba. It turns out that the river has his reservations about everything going on on his banks. In the enigmatic voice-over, he explains in a disappointed tone that people regard him as an insignificant river. “They are as indifferent as I am,” he gloomily remarks. “They forget how much I want to come into their houses, to open every drawer, to sit at their table.” Archive footage of a flood shows the river putting his words into deeds.

We follow this unusual journey through the memories of a menacing river who’s overflowing with vengeful and jealous feelings about the people living around him. But the Suquía—like his better-known brothers the Nile, the Seine and the Ganges—has plenty to say about the city that has grown up along its banks. Viewed from a non-human perspective, these developments elicit very different feelings about the passage of time.