* Broadcast Quality Footage and Digital Photos of Q’orianka’s Amazon Visit Available to the Press *
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WHO/WHAT: Q’orianka Kilcher, who won the 2006 ALMA Award for Outstanding Actress in a Film for her performance as Pocahontas in the Terrence Malick film The New World, will brief the media on her recent trip to the northern Peruvian Amazon rainforest. After attending The New World premier in Lima, Peru, Ms. Kilcher spent one week traveling by river to the remote Rio Corrientes region to witness the critical situation facing indigenous peoples after years of contamination from oil drilling activities in the area. In response, the United Nations has invited her to participate in events at the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples’ in August.
WHEN: Monday, July 24th at 11am
WHERE: Fairmont Miramar Santa Monica
Veranda Terrace Room, 2nd Floor
101 Wilshire Boulevard (at Ocean Ave), Santa Monica
WHY: Of Peruvian Quechua and Huachipaeri descent, Ms. Kilcher visited the area to learn about the serious health and environmental crisis facing the indigenous Achuar peoples who live deep in the Peru’s northern Amazon rainforest. The Achuar currently suffer grave health effects and threats to their cultural survival as a result of petroleum pollution on their formerly-pristine lands. Her trip was organized by Amazon Watch, a California-based non-profit organization that preserves the rainforest and supports indigenous peoples’ rights.
On her fact-finding visit to the Amazon, Ms. Kilcher visited Achuar communities affected by 35 years of oil drilling operations by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum (OXY) and Pluspetrol, an Argentine company. Texas-based ConocoPhillips, the third largest oil company in the United States, has further plans to drill in neighboring areas of pristine Amazon rainforest, also the homeland of the Achuar.
Ms. Kilcher’s new production company, IQ Productions, is also planning to produce a feature length documentary on the subject, in collaboration with Amazon Watch, to highlight the crisis and bring about immediate change.
