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For 120 days a year, Venice is swamped with a brackish water because of bad weather. The population has dropped from 150,000 in 1960 to 60,000 today, shops close and life comes to a standstill. In 2000, the italian government must decide whether to go ahead with a highly disputed plan to control the tides. This US$2.5 billion project would take eight years to construct a system of moveable barriers fixed onto the sea bed that connect the lagoon to the Adriatic Sea. The project has national and international financiers and European community's full support. Surprisingly, the main opposition comes from the Venetians themselves. Many of them have grown fat on continued government financial support and any final solution to the "acqua alta" is seen as the death knell to a comfortable lifestyle. The environmentalists argue that the lagoon's ecosystem would be harmfully altered by the barriers. Should the government go ahead with the project or should it go back to the drawing board?

Italy / Japan / USA / France - 2001 - 52 mn - Betacam Digital • 16/9 - Colour

Réalisation Gianfranco Pannone, Marco Visalberghi Image Stefano Pancaldi Son Matteo Orsini, Fausto Achilli Montage Paolo Vanghetti Musique Daniele Cestana, Giovanni Sollima

Production Doclab Productions, Viale G. Mazzini 73, 00195 Rome, Italie Tél : +39 06 3265 2740 Fax : +39 06 3250 1323 E-mail : info@doclab.it Co-Production Mediatrade, NHK Japan Broadcasting Corp, Discovery Channel Europe, WGBH Boston, La Compagnie des Taxi Brousse

Ventes Altitude Rights Consultancy, Addisland Court Holland Villas Rd, W148DA Londres, Royaume-Uni Tél : +44 20 7602 0037 Fax : +44 20 7681 3004 E-mail : peter.worsey@altituderights.com