Synopsis
The Road to Patagonia is a stunning, intimate and unflinching series of love letters within a documentary – firstly a love between two people, and secondly between humanity and the Earth. We follow Matty Hannon on an incredible solo adventure, to surf the west coast of the Americas by motorbike, from the top of Alaska to the tip of Patagonia. But deep in the wilderness – alone with the wolves and the bears – the journeyer’s plans unexpectedly fall to pieces. After losing everything, and on the cusp of quitting he meets the girl of his dreams, a permaculture farmer named Heather Hillier who throws caution to the wind and sells her urban-farm to buy a bike of her own. Together riding south, the duo meet with Zapatista rebels, Amazonian shamans and Mapuche leaders whose salient words crack the adventurers’ cultural veneer, leaving them with existential questions. The 50,000km surfing odyssey becomes beautifully complicated by their decision to downshift from motorcycles to horseback, presenting a relational approach to the breathtaking landscapes and a host of challenges that ultimately become extremely rewarding. Hannon and Hillier succeed in capturing deeply human moments during the world-first expedition, and the noticeable lack of camera-crew becomes The Road to Patagonia’s strength. The theme of deep ecology underpins the entire film, visually communicated through exquisite cinematography and emotional verité sequences. Shot over 16 years, the result is an adventurous exposé on the more-than-human world, offering a physical and spiritual odyssey to better understand our place in Nature.
Tech-Info
Shooting format: Digital
Aspect ratio: 16×9
Audio: Dolby Atmos, 5.1 or Stereo
Length: 90min
Language: English, Spanish, Mentawai
(with English subtitiles)
Distribution AUS/NZ Garage
and Madman Entertainment
Director’s
Statement
THE ROAD TO PATAGONIA is a physical and spiritual odyssey to better understand our place in nature.
Not only do I believe in the power of adventure to coax us out of our digital lives – to reconnect ourselves with the Earth and each other – but I believe in the power of an emotive documentary, an immersive experience that inspires the audience into self-reflection and action.
As a verité documentary THE ROAD TO PATAGONIA includes 16 years of footage from my life. Some moments were difficult to include, being so personal and vulnerable. However, overall they were incredibly privileged times to have documented, and despite investigating themes of colonialism and globalisation, the film aims to instil an uplifting sense of hope and positivity in the audience. In a way, I hope it’s a small antidote to the heaviness of the world in recent years.
Some of the interviewees included in the film speak to the harsh consequences of an ancient paradigm conflicting with the dominant modern system. Indeed we live in polarising times; the mainstream west still embedded in a Cartesian philosophy that says humans are separate from and superior to nature, all the while accepting the ideas of dualism; of man vs nature, man vs woman, white vs black, right vs left etc.
THE ROAD TO PATAGONIA investigates a philosophy born epochs before René Descartes or even the Abrahamic religions, a complex web of life and ideas that are still thriving today, and it argues that to truly bring ourselves into harmony with the natural world, we must slow down, and return to seeing humanity as a part of it.
As you’ll see in the third and final act of the film, slowing down will not only help humanity and the more-than-human-world, but it might also be the most beautiful adventure of our lives.