Adventure: The Spanish woman and the Sherpa who have set out to clean Everest of trash
Interview: The adventures of the young man who travels from Barcelona to Australia on foot
Journalist, writer and screenwriter,
Mario Cuesta
(Madrid, 1980) does not like half measures.
He goes from a catastrophe like the
civil war in Syria
to the natural wonders of
Antarctica
with the same inquisitive gaze and an impeccable desire to spread the word.
He did it in 2015 with
Above my corpse
(Ediciones del Viento), a book about
Syria, Lebanon and Kurdish Turkey
that sold out its first edition in just six months.
And he has done it again after passing through the South Pole, where he traveled in 2017 to address the reality of international scientists and the Spanish crew of the oceanographic research vessel
Hespérides
.
From those five unforgettable weeks the
documentary
Antarctica: a message from another planet
(Movistar and Filmin) was born, a film that has won the Audience Award at the
Another Way
festival
and has been third in the awards at the
Handle Climate Change Film Festival
in China.
Still from the documentary 'Antarctica: a message from another planet'.
With dissemination as an objective, Cuesta has also published a
children's book
together with the illustrator Raquel Martín for children aged six and over,
Antarctica: the continent of prodigies
(Ed. Mosquito Books).
But the southernmost continent on the planet goes a long way and Cuesta reserves the odd surprise.
QUESTION. How does one go from experiencing the harsh reality of Syria to the idyllic landscapes of Antarctica?
REPLY.
It was not a natural step, nor was it fortuitous.
It was a search.
Since 2011 I was overwhelmed by what was happening in a country and with such close people (I met my wife in Damascus).
He didn't make sense of that.
I did not expect to find it in Antarctica, because war is meaningless, but I did look for a tool to avoid being defeated.
On the other hand, my other specialty as a scriptwriter and journalist is
nature
,
adventure
and the
environment.
In that sense, Antarctica was a long-awaited destination.
Q.- Is it true that you feel in Antarctica that you are on another planet?
R.-
Definitely.
It cannot be compared to anything known.
Only to the Arctic, and even with this there are notable differences.
Something that increases the feeling of having left Earth is the
absence of human beings
and their inaccessibility.
The feeling that
you are away from everything.
So far that you cannot go, or turn around, at will.
Q.- How did you come back from Antarctica: disappointed or more hopeful than before making the trip?
R.-
More optimistic.
Not only because I verified the reality of
the Antarctic Treaty,
but because I had the opportunity to meet the scientists, military and diplomats who support it.
The values of the treaty are a reality of flesh and blood, not just signed paper.
Q.- In your documentary, you point out that Antarctica is a laboratory for international cooperation. What do the scientists, military and researchers who work there have in common?
A.-
Everyone is willing to
help
the person next to them.
No one would leave a battered ship, an underserved base, or a sample uncollected due to lack of instruments.
He wonders "what do you need" rather than "where do you come from?"
Q.- Antarctica is the factory of cold, how do you cope with the temperature?
A.-
We travel during the southern summer.
We were between 5ºC and -5ºC.
On some occasions the wind produced a thermal sensation of -10ºC, and only on one occasion we were able to touch the thermal sensation of -15ºC.
My Antarctic memories do not include the cold, but they do include the instability.
The good weather forecast suddenly turns bad (canceling all your recording plans), to return to acceptable, in just a few hours, and again spoil, forcing you to put away your equipment in a hurry to return to the ship.
Mario Cuesta (center) in Antarctica with his film crew.
Q.- There is no lack of humor throughout the documentary, are setbacks better overcome with a laugh?
A.-
Laughter is another state of nature.
Even the animals play and enjoy rolling in the snow.
Giving up humor is like looking at the world through a narrow hole.
Q.- Another issue you are addressing is incipient tourism in Antarctica. What is your opinion of tourist cruises?
A.-
Antarctic tourism is a reality that must be regulated.
The prohibition does not make sense, because it would be unenforceable, but absolute permissiveness is dangerous for the ecosystem.
The
cruises
are something else.
As explained in the documentary, in some places they remove the seabed, suffocating the fauna that inhabits it.
Members of the Antarctic Treaty have recently debated what steps to take in this regard.
How to
put a tax
on each tourist to invest in environmental protection.
In these discussions there are Spanish researchers advising, such as Javier Benayas.
Q.- What was your most amazing experience?
A.-
In the documentary we show that one day a
southern dwarf whale
began to play with our boat.
What we did not film was that in one of his approaches he brought one of his eyes to the surface, to observe us better.
He was so close to me that there would be no more than five feet between his eye and mine.
We stare at each other.
It lasted a couple of seconds, but for me the world imploded.
I returned to the
Hesperides,
unable to speak a word until a long time later.
Still from the documentary 'Antarctica: a message from another planet'. ALBERTO SAIZ
Q.- Any anecdote that has been left out of the footage?
A.-
On the day of the storm that we filmed, my partner and camera operator, Alberto Sáiz, suffered a slight frostbite on his finger.
It took him a week to regain sensation.
Fortunately it was not the finger to press the REC button.
Q.- Now that we live in a world where there is little room for surprise because we have seen, read or even bought everything without leaving home, is Antarctica surprising?
R.-
This sounds like a sugar philosophy, but the novelty is in the
look
, not in the landscape.
I live in El Escorial and every time I go out into the mountains I discover that the same old things have been transformed.
Without going further with each season, or comparing one spring with the previous one.
What remains unchanged is the city, the urban.
Q.- In addition to the documentary, together with the illustrator Raquel Martín, you have published the children's book
Antarctica: the continent of wonders.
How did the idea for the story come about?
Which Antarctica do you think future generations will inherit?
R.-
It emerged at the same time as with the documentary.
From the beginning I proposed a communication project with several elements.
I am now finishing an
adventure novel
for readers aged 12 and over.
Q.- What Antarctica do you think future generations will inherit?
A.-
Society is increasingly aware of the environment.
Antarctica will be affected not by what we do there, but by the continents where we live.
This is where your future is at stake.
Our generation has become aware, it is part of our political and daily agenda.
Our children will have to take the next step, which involves sacrifice: abandon consumerism.
Will they be capable?
I don't know, they have powerful enemies in front of them.
Q.- Syria, Antarctica ... the bar has been set very high. What is your next challenge?
R.-
For now, finish that novel for kids.
And then, if the stars align, a documentary with the
Himalayas
as the protagonist.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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