River of Gold (2018): Documentary Film

In 2012, James Cavello, Producer and Margarite Almeida, Executive Producer, launched their award-winning documentary film, Amazon Gold, (produced with Sarah DuPont, directed by Reuben Aaronson), which traveled to film festivals worldwide. Amazon Gold won 13 awards, including a Humanitarian award at Hawai’i International Film Festival in 2012. 

In 2018, River of Gold documentary film launched as a revised version of the original film with added footage representing five years of scientific updates and highlights of the ongoing issues in the Amazon rainforest. River of Gold won in the documentary film category at ARPA Int’l Film Festival in Los Angeles, November 2018.  River of Gold is available for streaming on: 

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Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Microsoft, and Vudu.

Narrated by Academy Award winners, Sissy Spacek and Herbie Hancock, River of Gold is the disturbing account of a clandestine journey that bears witness to the apocalyptic destruction of the rainforest in the pursuit of illegally mined gold. This film documents a devastation that will result in consequences on a global scale.

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The film follows two journalists, Ron Haviv, photographer, and Donovan Webster, writer, who each spent decades covering human rights issues in war-torn regions of the world. In the film, Haviv and Webster are on a journey to view never-before seen illegal gold mining operations deep in the Peruvian rainforest. They are accompanied by Peruvian environmental activitist and biologist, Enrique Ortiz, who is uniquely qualified to point out the savage destruction of once pristine rainforest. Their journey takes them through several regions where illegal mining operations exist on river barges along the Madre de Dios River and further destinations. The team travels through Puerto Maldonado to prepare for a more harrowing clandestine trip into unknown territory. Each step along the way the Amazon rainforest reveals its valuable biodiversity, including exotic birds, thousand year old trees, land animals, water animals, insects, and an incredibly ongoing a new species is discovered every three days by scientists on the ground.