Belo Monte: After the Flood is a powerful new documentary directed by award-winning environmental documentarian Todd Southgate and produced in collaboration with Amazon Watch, International Rivers, and Cultures of Resistance. Narrated by Emmy-winning actor and Amazon Watch honorary board member Peter Coyote, the film explores the effects of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam on the environment and peoples of the Brazilian city of Altamira and the Xingu River basin, a tributary to the Amazon River.
While Belo Monte’s first turbine was tested early in 2016, After the Flood shows how the multi-billion dollar project has generated controversy for the last 30 years as successive Brazilian governments have ignored protests, broken promises, and neglected mitigation measures, leading to irreparable damage to communities and livelihoods.
We’re very excited about the potential for this new documentary to raise public awareness and promote debate on this critical issue, and we will make sure that it is widely distributed, free of charge.
Through interviews with local residents, environmental and social activists and indigenous peoples, After the Flood tells a horrific tale of shattered lives, government maleficence, and, in the case of the Juruna people, an indigenous community living just a stone’s throw from the dam, a charge of ethnocide by public prosecutors.
Now that the Xingu River is dammed and Belo Monte has begun to generate its first watts of electricity, controversy surrounding this project has only grown as the Brazilian government continues to come under fire for new corruption revelations and broken promises. Nonetheless, the government has plans to build even more dams in the Amazon including on the Tapajós River, another major tributary to the Amazon River located in the Brazilian state of Pará.
After the Flood concludes with hopeful images from the fight of the Munduruku people, who have thus far prevented the government from repeating the Belo Monte mistake by building a dam on the Tapajós and flooding a significant amount of their territory.
To learn more about Belo Monte: After the Flood, watch the trailer and get news on launch events, visit the film’s website or Facebook page.
