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Watershed

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THE PROJECT

Watershed intimately captures agrarian life in the heart of the Andes Mountains and portrays the struggle of a Chilean farming community to preserve its culture, land, and water rights. 

With the influx of large-scale mining projects, local residents suddenly confront an imminent threat to the watershed system upon which their livelihood depends. The focus of the conflict is the Pascua Lama open-pit gold mine, situated high in the Andes mountain range on the border of Chile and Argentina.

The approval of Pascua Lama has opened this ecologically fragile region to various other industrial projects, which are drastically altering the landscape, forcing rural and indigenous communities off of ancestral lands, and hastening environmental devastation.  On a global level, available freshwater represents less than half of 1 percent of the world's water. Massive industrial development is disrupting the balance between humans and nature and has increased the demand for water in resource-scarce areas.

Through personal testimonies and powerful visual storytelling, this documentary sheds light on the implications of unfettered industrial growth and the global issue of diminishing natural resources. We have been following the story as it unfolds in the Huasco Valley and interviewing local residents, natural resource specialists, government representatives, and legal and business professionals who are invested in promoting responsible development and sustainability in Chile and throughout South America.

We have completed a 40-minute rough cut and are currently in Chile, beginning our next production phase, during which we will follow three central characters over a one-month period. The story of the Huasco Valley community’s struggle to preserve their centuries old way of life will develop through the intimate portraits of these characters, whose culture and daily lives depend on their precious watershed system and serve as the backbone of the film.   

Produced and Directed by Lauren Rosenfeld. Edited by Anthony Rauld.

 

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