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This documentary short is about the Uru-Murato indigenous communities of Lake Poopó, Bolivia, as they try to survive the loss of the lake that sustained their community. Q&A with filmmakers to follow.
“The lake was our mother, our father. Now, we are orphans.” The Uru community lived in floating houses and spent weeks on their boats in the lake; hunting and fishing was their main source of subsistence for centuries. But industrial mining contaminated and diverted Lake Poopó’s tributary streams, which, along with extensive drought, caused the lake’s waters to disappear entirely by 2016. Despite its absence, the Urus continue to call themselves Qotzuñis—their ancestral word for “people of the lake.”
Co-directed by Princeton University 2024 graduate Michael Salama as part of his senior thesis, "Qotzuñi" premiered in DOC NYC, where it received the Grand Jury Prize and qualified for the 2026 Academy Awards.
The screening of the 13-minute film will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers. Light refreshments will be served.
Michael Salama - Co-director
Multimedia producer from New York. Documentary research focuses on freshwater access in arid regions across the Americas, published in the journal Sustainability, The Princeton Historical Review, Argentina's La Nación, and more. Salama is a Class of 2024 Princeton University graduate who studied history. This film was created as part of his senior thesis.
Gastón Zilberman - Co-director
Social and environmental storyteller based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His work has been published in National Geographic, and Qotzuñi’s photographic series has been awarded in the Sony World Photography Awards 2024, Photo Vogue 2025 among others.
Presented as a special event of the Princeton Environmental Film Festival.
