Climate Cuts - Qotzuñi: People of the Lake (Audio)
FILMMAKER INTERVIEW Hosted by Akosua Owusu-Akyaw
In the first episode of Climate Cuts, host Akosua Owusu-Akyaw speaks with Michael Salama and Gastón Zilberman, directors of Qotzuñi: People of the Lake (2024), a short film about the Uru people in Bolivia and the impacts of the desertification of Lake Poopó due to mining. In this conversation, they discuss the politics of water in Bolivia, the importance of portraying culture & community, the local economic impacts of the lake, and what they hope viewers take away from the film. The story of the Uru people and Lake Poopó’ ask us all to consider our relationships to land, water, and community.
Film Synopsis:
“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.”
Qotzuñi was screened at the 2025 New York Climate Film Festival
More about the film:
www.qotzunifilm.com
www.instagram.com/qotzuni
Film Credits
Director: Gastón Zilberman, Michael Salama
Producer: Gastón Zilberman, Michael Salama
Co-Producer: Jordan Salama
Cinematographer: Gastón Zilberman
Editor: Axel Cheb Terrab
Composer: Carlos Carty
Sound Design: Alex Roitman
Year: 2024
Language: Spanish, Quechua
Country: Argentina, Bolivia
Stay tuned for more episodes of Climate Cuts for conversations with filmmakers from the Climate Film Festival.
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