SIMA – Mother of All Rivers What motivated you to make this film?
My personal commitment to tell stories of Indigenous people whose rights are being trampled by corrupt government and corporate interests.
Please tell us what camera(s) you shot with primarily – and any other special equipment that you used and why you used it.
Canon 7D Mark II
Please tell us about any special styles or techniques that you used during the production of your film to help tell your story.
We spent time getting to know our film’s heroine and members of her community to build trust and gain access to the people and locations to tell Berta’s story. We were thrilled to work with Brigitte Gynther, from School of the America’s Watch, as our community production coordinator. Brigitte has lived and worked in the Lenca community of Río Blanco for many years and her relationship with Berta and the community there opened the door, allowing us to get inside, which would not have been possible without her support. Equally important was the work of Tegucigalpa based field producer Renato Lacayo and his amazing team of drivers and security personnel. We used fairly straight forward production techniques. We did film some time lapse footage of the landscape to show the drama of the ever changing weather in the mountains of western Honduras.
How did your story evolve from day one, to the very last day in post? Is your story what you thought it would be?
The story evolved in a way that was unexpected because while we were filming, our heroine Berta Cáceres, began to receive death threats. This led to the entire team feeling a level of stress and tension that, while not close to what Berta lived, gave us all a palpable feel for what her life was like. Berta was always on high alert, she had to be in order to stay a step ahead of the corrupt government, military, national police and corporate interests, who were all out to get her. On our last day filming we had to decide, both as a team, along with Berta and the Lenca community of Río Blanco, how to evade those who were trying to kill her. These were not easy choices or decisions. We devised a plan to met the threat of a community down mountain from Río Blanco that had blocked the road, along with the National Police, to prevent our safe passage. These were Berta’s arch enemies. We all escaped harm but not before a tense standoff between members of Berta’s Lenca Indigenous rights organization, COPINH and members of the community who were pro-mining, pro-hydroelectric power plant, who had blocked the road and wanted to confront Berta, if not worse. We escaped but only with the cunning wit of fixer Renato Lacayo and his amazing team of security personnel and of course that of Berta and her COPINH counterparts.
Please describe the most rewarding experience you had while making this film.
Bonding with the Berta, her family, members of COPINH (Indigenous rights organization) and the Lenca community who we lived and worked with. Also, rewarding is seeing how audiences react to Berta and the story of her community’s successful struggle.
What advice can you give to other impact filmmakers?
You must have passion for the subjects of your films because you often must live with them for years before completing your documentary. If you don’t think you have it in you to stay with a story for as long as it takes to find a resolution, then perhaps you should reconsider because once you’re in you should be in 100%! You must fulfill your commitments, have a generosity of spirit, and be sincere and honest with the subjects of your film as well as to their family’s and fellow community members.
What’s your favorite part about the filmmaking process and why?
Getting to know the subjects of my films and the bonding with my crews in foreign countries. It’s the establishment of life long relationships with individuals who have dedicated their lives to the betterment of their fellow human beings and the protection of Mother Earth. Doing this work makes me want to be a better person, to do more, to give more of myself to others and to the issues that matter to me. In fact the work does have that desired effect.
What’s the one item you always take with you when working out in the field and why?
Parmigiano Reggiano, the king of cheese because it travels well due to the fact that it is a hard dry cheese, because it is universally loved, I’ve shared it with everyone from Tibetan exiles in a Himalayan monastery at 12,000′, to Indigenous Asháninka people on the headwaters of the Amazon in Peru. It also brings a little taste of home and comfort when in faraway places.
Please share a personal story about your experience making this film.
My crew and I have never been more personally and physically challenged than we were making Berta’s film in Honduras. The drive on our first day of production, from the regional capital La Esperanza to the Lenca community San Francisco de Opalaca was supposed to take 2.5 hours on a packed dirt road. Due to unseasonable torrential rains (climate change oriented) which caused the roads to become almost impassable with knee deep mud, the drive took 12.5 hours! Our four, 4×4 vehicles got stuck 12 times on the drive! The hills were as steep as the steepest streets of San Francisco, CA, our home. Our Lenca drivers would leap out of the vehicles, yelling, Le Lazo, Le Lazo, The Rope, The Rope, indicating that we should also get out to help, push and pull the vehicles out of the mud. Luckily they knew to buy us rubber boots with Vibram soles, because when we jumped out we had to be sure the mud didn’t swoosh into our knee high boots and we also had to be sure we didn’t twist our knees or loose a boot in the thick, adobe mud, which could literally pull your boot off once the suction worked its way. The 24 people in our team would alternately push the vehicles or pull on the ropes, which had been secured under a vehicle’s front axle. Then, someone would begin shouting orders, inspiring us to pull or push in unison. Miraculously, we always got the vehicles out of the mud, which doesn’t mean they didn’t often immediately get stuck again. The entire team was wet, cold and literally covered in mud by the time we finally arrived at San Francisco de Opalaca. We dragged our tired selves into the nunnery where we were staying, ate our cold, hours old meal of franks and beans, then crawled into our sleeping bags, still cold and wet. The next day after filming a community gathering and Indigenous water ceremony, we repeated the drive back to La Esperanza in the same style, getting stuck at least a dozen times. This time our Lenca guides had prearranged for one or two communities along the way to help us. One with a tractor, another with a monster truck, another with a wench, and yet another with 12 people who came out to join in our pushing and pulling brigade. The return trip proved to be foggy in addition to rainy and wet, adding to the degree of difficulty for the drivers who had little ability to gain any momentum prior to climbing a long steep hill due to the lack of visibility. We took the next day off to sleep, bathe and have the vehicles and our video equipment washed and detailed. Phew, that was one difficult trip that almost broke our spirits. Instead, we managed to pull through it (all puns intended) and it bonded us for life as a group.
Can you describe any obstacles you encountered in making your film and/or in your distribution/exhibition efforts?
When Berta Caceres was assassinated in her sleep, almost one year after we completed our film, I began to question the validity of our work, its value. Berta told us that she thought our film about her would in fact help protect her. I’m not so sure and I carried a heavy personal load for many months after her death. Eventually, I spoke with Berta’s mother and a number of Indigenous, environmental, human rights and social justice activists who I have worked with these past 25 years. Her mother said, Come on man, get a hold of yourself! You have an obligation and a duty to tell this story. The others I consulted all told me to keep doing the work I was doing, telling the untold stories of environmental defenders who are fighting to make this world a better place than the world in which we live.
What do you want audiences to take away from your film?
An understanding of the personal strength that Indigenous rights leader / environmental defender Berta Caceres brought to her fight for her people’s rights to self-determination and the fact that any single person, armed with courage, strength and commitment can make a positive difference in the world. Also, that community led, grassroots movements are the way to create change in the world. Local movements, become regional movements, then grow state wide, eventually becoming national movements. This isn’t some kind of pie in the sky Pollyanna idealism, this is reality. Berta gave her life for her beliefs and the rights of her people and Indigenous people across the globe.
Please list key points that should be covered in a post-screening discussion:
Since the 2009 coup, Honduras witnessed an explosive growth in environmentally destructive megaprojects that would displace Indigenous communities. Almost 30 percent of the country’s land was earmarked for mining concessions, creating a demand for cheap energy to power future mining operations. To meet this need, the government approved hundreds of dam projects around the country, privatizing rivers, land, and uprooting communities.
Among them was the Agua Zarca Dam, a joint project of Honduran company Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA) and Chinese state-owned Sinohydro, the world’s largest dam developer. Agua Zarca, slated for construction on the sacred Gualcarque River, was pushed through without approval from the Indigenous Lenca people in the community of Rio Blanco—a violation of international treaties governing Indigenous rights. The dam would cut off the supply of water, food and medicine for hundreds of Lenca people and violate their right to sustainably manage and live on their land.
Berta Cáceres, a Lenca woman, grew up during the violence that swept through Central America in the 1980s. Her mother, a doctor, social activist, and politician took in and cared for injured refugees from El Salvador during that country’s civil war, teaching her young children the importance of standing up for disenfranchised people.
Cáceres became a student activist and in 1993, she co-founded the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) to address the growing threats posed to Lenca communities by illegal logging, fighting for her people’s territorial rights.
In 2006, community members from Río Blanco came to COPINH asking for support. They had witnessed an influx of machinery and construction equipment coming into their community. They had no idea what the construction was for or who was behind the project. What they knew was that an aggression against the river—a place of spiritual importance to the Lenca people—was an act against the community, its free will, and its autonomy.
With mandates from local community members at every step of the way, Cáceres began mounting a campaign against the Agua Zarca Dam. She filed complaints with government authorities, bringing along community representatives on trips to Tegucigalpa, the nation’s capital. She organized a local assembly where community members formally voted against the dam, and led a protest where people peacefully demanded their rightful say in the project.
The campaign also reached out to the international community, bringing the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, lodging appeals against the project’s funders, such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank, Dutch development bank FMO and FinnFund.
Ignoring these appeals, the national government and local mayors forged ahead. They doctored minutes from a community meeting to paint a false picture of unanimous approval for the dam, and offered cash to local people in exchange for their signature on documents declaring their support. The Mayor and his staff forged the signatures of more than 400 Río Blanco community members, claiming they were in support of the project.
In April 2013, Cáceres organized a road blockade to prevent DESA’s access to the dam site. Using a carefully organized system of alerts to keep everyone in the loop, the Lenca people maintained a heavy but peaceful presence, rotating friends and family members for weeks at a time. For more than one year, the blockade withstood multiple eviction attempts and violent attacks from militarized security contractors and the Honduran armed forces.
Honduras’ violent climate is well documented, but few understand that environmental and human rights activists are often victims. Río Blanco community leader Tomas Garcia was shot and killed during a peaceful protest at the dam site. Others have been attacked with machetes, discredited, detained, and tortured. None of the perpetrators have been brought to justice.
Against these odds, Cáceres and the Lenca community’s efforts successfully kept construction equipment out of the proposed dam site. In late 2013, Sinohydro terminated its contract with DESA, publicly citing ongoing community resistance and outrage following Tomas’ death. Agua Zarca suffered another blow when the IFC withdrew its funding, citing concerns about human rights violations. To date, construction on the project has effectively come to a halt.
Please provide information on any recent developments regarding the issue or subjects of the film. How have things changed or not changed?
Death threats to Cáceres continued until March 3, 2016 when she was murdered by gunmen in her home in La Esperanza, Honduras. Her death, followed by the killing of her colleague and fellow COPINH member Nelson García just 12 days later, sparked international outrage. Dutch development bank FMO and FinnFund have since suspended their involvement in the Agua Zarca project.
In 2019 and 2022, eight men accused of murdering Berta Cáceres (including hitmen, former military personnel and DESA employees, including the company president) were convicted and sentenced to between 22-1/2 and 50 years in prison.
In late 2025, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) issued a report reconstructing how the 2016 murder of Berta Cáceres was planned, financed, and covered up to protect the corporate, financial, and political interests of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project. The report mapped out how the Agua Zarca Dam’s developer Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA), powerful business elites (such as the Atala family), and state actors formed a criminal structure to surveil, intimidate, and eliminate opposition from the Lenca community.
The report calls on Honduran authorities and international actors to enact comprehensive reparations, revoke the Agua Zarca concession, dissolve DESA, and recognize collective Indigenous land rights. The plan serves as an example of what reparations for the intertwined violations of basic human rights and of anti-fraud, corruption and abuse of authority norms might look like. Those reparations are not only, or even principally, about money, but rather reestablishing the citizenship and dignity of the individuals, families and communities who were harmed and transforming their lives for the better.
What opportunities are available for those interested in getting further involved?
Learn how to get involved in the Lenca people’s ongoing struggle through COPINH, the Indigenous rights founded by Berta Cáceres. https://copinh.org/berta-caceres/
Different ways to collaborate:
- Disseminating our complaints and statements.
- Sharing our posts on social media.
- Supporting the campaigns for justice for Berta Cáceres and the defense of the Lenca territory.
- Participating in activities, forums and solidarity events.
For other forms of collaboration or to make contributions, please write to us at: comunicacion@copinh.org
Please provide any additional resources (websites, links to additional videos, forms, articles, etc.):
Water For Life – a feature documentary exploring the collision of water rights, Indigenous beliefs, and resource extraction through the lives of three Latin American community leaders. The right to clean water is a global issue—in Latin America it has become a matter of life and death.
The film features Berta Cáceres Honduras Lenca Indigenous leader; Francisco Pineda, a subsistence farmer in El Salvador; and Alberto Curamil, a Chilean Indigenous Mapuche Chief.
Narrated by Mexican actor Diego Luna with the original song Ko (Water) sung by Grammy Award-winning Mexican Mixtec singer Lila Downs and Chilean Mapuche singer-songwriter Daniela Millaleo.
Ko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6wISknVQUM
Water For Life on Amazon Prime Video (home video): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FJ4SP44Q?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback
Water For Life on Bullfrog Films (educational and community screenings): https://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/wfl.html
Water For Life study guide – Robert & Ethel Kennedy Center for Human Rights https://kennedyhumanrights.org/our-impact/education/educators/our-film-screenings/
The Guardian – Berta Cáceres assassination: ex-head of dam company found guilty
The Intercept – The Cash Before The Killing https://theintercept.com/2022/06/23/honduras-berta-caceres-murder-money-trail/
The Guardian – Eight years after Berta Caceres’ murder is there new hope for justice https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/apr/01/years-after-berta-caceres-is-there-new-hope-for-justice
Global Witness – At least 146 land and environmental defenders killed or disappeared globally in 2024
https://globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/at-least-146-land-and-environmental-defenders-killed-or-disappeared-globally-in-2024/