A film by Michael Salama and Gastón Zilberman

Impact Producers: Bonnie Abuanza and Kathleen Rodgers

“The lake was our mother, our father. Now, we are orphans.” For generations, the Uru Indigenous Nation had been the inhabitants of the 3,000-square-kilometer Lake Poopó, living on floating islands, hunting and fishing for sustenance, and forming an inextricable cultural bond to its vast waters. Throughout the early 21st century, the Uru way of life changed drastically; industrial mining operations contaminated and diverted Lake Poopó’s tributary streams, which, along with extensive drought, caused the lake’s waters to disappear entirely by 2016. This documentary short explores the challenges faced by the last remaining Urus of Lake Poopó, as well as their resilience and adaptation in the face of obstacles to water access. Despite the loss of the lake that once defined their culture and means of survival, the Urus continue to call themselves Qotzuñis—their ancestral word for “people of the lake.”