Directed by Danielle Rotholi, Roberto Luis Ellis
Country of Origin – Germany
Runtime- 01:05:00
This film is a message for consideration, a wake up call to reclaim our role in these occurrences. If the coming devastation and danger can not be stopped, then we desperately need to reconsider the manner in which our systems can change to better manage such events in the future.
Director Biography – Danielle Rotholi, Roberto Luis Ellis
Danielle Rotholi
Director, Co-producer, Camera woman, and Scriptwriter.
Descendant of a German family, Danielle grew up in various cities throughout Brazil, constantly fascinated by the regional cultures and accents, which embody the local, genuine personality of its people. She received her bachelor in Audiovisual & New Media, graduating with honors from the University of Fortaleza; for her, documentary production is a vivid artistic expression (Abyssal, 2016). After starting her career as a TV producer (Rede Globo), Danielle immigrated to Germany in 2015 to pursue a masters degree in International Media Studies at the Deutsche Welle Akademie in Bonn. Since then she has dedicated herself to integrating into German culture and its media market. Flow & Rive is her first European production; as a foreigner, her aim is to share a unique perspective towards a culture she admires and seeks to complement, as well as delivering a global message of awareness.
Roberto Luis Elils
Co-director, Producer, Camera Assistant, and Scriptwriter
Born to and raised by parents who emigrated from Panama and Brazil of Jamaican/Scottish and German/Czech descent, respectively, in New York City, U.S.A., it was at the end of his Bachelor’s studies (Sociology/Anthropology) in 2009 that Roberto first encountered Heidegger’s essay The Question Concerning Technology. Pursuing the line of inquiry to Germany, focusing his German learning through Existentialism, Hermeneutics, and Phenomenology, Roberto was frustrated with barriers of communication; the central question and potential importance for addressing problems impeding humanity’s progression into a sustainable future had emerged from meditations on this particular theory and, so, was technically an academic one. Its importance, however, seemed too relevant to just render a paper in inaccessible academic language no one would read. Although juxtaposing visions of the river and interviewees with relevant audio from interviews and narratives was certainly a challenge, this decelerative interweaving seemed a language more apt to communicate the question’s multi-dimensional, theoretical intricacy, while infusing the contemplation with the situation’s requisite relevance and call for immediacy of action. Its conception will also hopefully further a separate discourse, namely the documentary essay as a form of theses’ exhibition in academic deliberation and dissemination.
Roberto studies Philosophy, currently enrolled in the Philosophical Institute’s Master of Arts at the Johannes Gutenberg University, in Mainz, Germany.