One year ago, a livestream hosted by a team of CONICET scientists gave viewers a real-time glimpse of what an underwater robot was filming nearly 4,000 meters below the surface in the Mar del Plata Submarine Canyon, roughly 300 kilometers off Argentina’s Atlantic coast. In an unprecedented milestone for science communication in the country, millions of people followed the expedition from their homes over the course of several weeks. The YouTube chat became a space for direct conversations with the scientists, fostering a remarkable sense of online community and turning the expedition into a shared journey of discovery. Along the way, one particular starfish unexpectedly became the star of countless memes and dinner-table conversations.
Marine biologist Nadia Cerino, who narrated several of those livestreams as part of the Talud Continental IV expedition, played a key role in making that happen. Following the Argentine premiere of How Deep Is Your Love—a documentary about a deep-sea scientific expedition filmed in the United Kingdom—FINCA will host a conversation moderated by María Mansilla of Revista Anfibia, bringing together Nadia Cerino and Alejo Di Risio to reflect on that extraordinary experience. How do forms of life we encounter for the very first time become a source of wonder for everyone? And how can we build a narrative that invites us to reflect on the extraordinary yet fragile environment we share with other living beings? How many worlds, and how many stories, can fit inside a single starfish?
Nadia Cerino
Nadia Cerino is an Argentine marine biologist with a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from CAECE University and a master’s degree in Marine Biology. She is a member of the Chemical Laboratory of the Scientific Forensics Department (CIPE, by its Spanish acronym) of the Argentine Coast Guard, where she specializes in water quality analysis for the detection of pollution from industrial and urban effluents across the country. She is also a researcher with the Argentine Deep-Sea Studies Group (GEMPA, by its Spanish acronym), focusing on the taxonomy and distribution of deep-sea corals of the Primnoidae family in the South Atlantic. Cerino gained widespread public recognition in 2025 during the CONICET–Schmidt Ocean Institute expedition Submarine Oases of the Mar del Plata Canyon: Talud Continental IV, which was broadcast live online. Viewers affectionately nicknamed her “Nadia Coralina” after a spontaneous remark she made while operating the remotely operated vehicle (ROV). She later adopted the nickname on Instagram (@nadia.coralina), where she has attracted more than 140,000 followers, becoming one of Argentina’s most recognizable voices in marine science communication.
María Mansilla
María Mansilla is an Argentine journalist and editor at Revista Anfibia. She is also a member of the Latin American Environmental Humanities Platform. Earlier in her career, she worked as a staff writer for Página 12 and as an editor at Hecho en Buenos Aires and ELLE Argentina. She has also served as a narrator and fellow of the Gabo Foundation. She currently works at Revista Anfibia, where she contributes to the publication’s Narrativas Anfibias initiative, dedicated to narrative journalism and critical analysis of current affairs, culture, the environment, and politics in Argentina and across Latin America.
Alejo Di Risio
Alejo Di Risio is an engineer and holds a master’s degree in Political Ecology. His work lies at the intersection of political ecology, culture, and communication, with a focus on shaping narratives that imagine more just and sustainable futures. He is the founder of the impact platform elSur.Global and serves as Communications Coordinator for both the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers and the Collective for Ecosocial Justice. As a filmmaker, he has directed Caja negra: el mito del voto electrónico (2017) and Por el Paraná: la disputa por el río (2024). Since 2026, he has been a scholar of the New York University’s MOTH (More Than Human Rights) program, where he is developing the project “From Rights to Reciprocity: A Framework for Living (with) Rivers”, which explores reciprocal relationships between people and bodies of water.
Film Synopsis
In the dark depths of the ocean, where few of us will ever venture, beautiful and strange creatures thrive in a hidden world. As the threat of deep-sea mining looms, a group of marine biologists races to discover what truly lies beneath the waves.
