The Current

In 1985, eleven people in their thirties decided to do something that no one had ever done before: to travel the entire length of the Amazon River, from its glacial source in the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. This six-month expedition, conceived as a final adventure before marriage, careers and adult responsibilities, was meant to be a rite of passage. Instead, it became a turning point in their lives. "The Current" is told primarily through the perspective of Kate Durrant, the team's doctor and the only woman in a male-dominated group. As the violent currents of the world's largest river, disease, isolation and encounters with terrorists test their endurance, deeper tensions arise within the group. Clashing ambitions, fragile hierarchies, romantic entanglements and an escalating struggle for leadership. The river proves dangerous, but human ego becomes an even more destabilising force. Four decades later, intimate interviews and newly digitised 16mm film footage reveal the psychological toll hidden beneath the myth of heroic exploration. ‘Nature is more predictable than people, as Kate Durrant states in "The Current".