STILL RIVER, SILENT JUNGLE, 10min., USA
Directed by Hayley Stuart
If built, the Chepete-Bala mega hydroelectric dams would flood over 770 square kilometers of Bolivian Amazon and would force the relocation of 48 indigenous communities within two protected areas. One brave woman, Ruth Alipaz Cuqui, steps forward to voice her peoples' concerns before the United Nations. Consequently, she becomes a target for backlash by the Bolivian government, who claims that her Western education deems her to be no longer indigenous, and therefore unfit to represent her own people. Returning to her ancestral land for guidance, Ruth solidifies her resolve to defend what she loves when she travels for ten days down the river whose tumultuous path and uncertain future mirror her own reality.