Blue Gold of the Alps

Synopsis

From the summit of Mont-Blanc to the depths of high-altitude lakes, they all pursue the same goal: demonstrate the vulnerability of our most precious resource : freshwater. By following their fights, accompanying them as closely as possible to their challenges, Dorothée Adam offers an exceptional film where human adventure, science and environment get together to warn on what is at stake at the very beginning of freshwater cycle.

Objectives

We're getting used to the images of polluted seas, rivers and oceans. We're also familiar with the continent of plastic drifting far from our shores, and the packaging that kills marine flora and fauna. This "downstream pollution" is widely documented, iconic of a disaster and a struggle. It represents the end of a cycle, that of crystal-clear water from our mountains, soiled by human before being - with increasing difficulty - repurified by nature itself. It's this untouched water, fresh from the glaciers, lakes and mountain torrents, that every bottle of mineral water boasts about, with stylized mountains on a blue or white background, or a waterfall singing on a rocky, snowy or green slope. 

Dorothée Adam shows us a very different reality: by accompanying scientists to the summit of Mont Blanc and to the bottom of Alpine lakes, she tracks down pollution at the very source of our fresh water. By deconstructing the myth of pure, she alerts us to the dangers of contamination in these once-preserved mountain regions. 

Filming science is always an aesthetic challenge: laboratory analysis is rarely visually impressive. Dorothée Adam's film has a very special dimension here : she turns her film into a human and sporting adventure, with seasoned mountaineers and divers, filmed in the heart of exceptional mountain and underwater landscapes. Through these extraordinary expeditions, the director shows science at work, in direct contact with nature, with the force of the water, with the bite of the cold. Her expertise in this field is indisputable, and her ability to blend in with extreme scientific expeditions has been amply demonstrated by her work in Greenland, the Arctic and aboard the Polar Quest. This time, Dorothée Adam is focusing on a danger that lies both much closer to home and much higher up, at the top of Europe's water tower: the Alps.

The ecological aspect is at the heart of our concerns - Lucien TV was founded and is run by Julien Tricard, also founder and moderator of Club'green media, an association dedicated to promoting environmental issues among media players in France. The filming was carried out in accordance with the principles of eco-production: reducing our ecological footprint as much as possible. By presenting the film at festivals and organizing screenings and debates, we hope to give strong, new exposure to those involved in the film. Because the eco-production approach doesn't stop at the shoot: our role is also to promote meaningful films, to give them resonance worthy of their messages. We want to make it an awareness-raising tool for all, a trigger for raising awareness about the pollution of our fresh water.