The governments of Paraguay and Argentina are refusing to cooperate with Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow on her next movie — Triple Frontier, about the terrorist-filled region between those countries and Brazil — because they’re worried it would negatively impact tourism: “We discussed this subject with Paraguay’s tourism minister and the governor of Misiones [an Argentine border state],†says Argentina’s tourism minister. “We all agreed that we were deeply indignant when we discovered that this project seeks to negatively portray this region shared by three South American countries.†They may have a point; Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker certainly didn’t make Iraq look like a very nice place for a vacation. But if Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay can’t police the smuggling and terror-financing that many believe occurs between their borders, presumably they’d never know if she shot a movie there, either.
Argentina, Paraguay outraged by Kathryn Bigelow’s new film [AFP via ArtsBeat/NYT]