The ancient history of mankind has been marked by all kinds of crises caused by the lack of water due to climate changes. Many cultures were able to overcome them, others were unable to adapt and declined. We have to learn from the cultures that resisted and those that succumbed.
10 years after the documentary shot by Isabel Coixet, the Aral Sea continues to be a paradigm of the errors that trigger an environmental disaster with terrible humanitarian consequences. Recovery plans have provided some results, but the full recovery of the large Asian lake is far from being accomplished.
In September 2009, the We Are Water Foundation presented the documentary Aral, the lost sea at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. This project was the result of the Foundation’s proposal to filmmaker Isabel Coixet: to create a documentary that would feature the importance of water in the lives of people, in economy and in the environmental balance. The production by the Spanish film director showed the terrible reality of a hitherto little-known international man-made disaster.
Lake Poopó, the second largest in Bolivia, dried up at the end of 2015 after a quick agony. Apart from the environmental and human disaster, the disappearance of water is the loss of a cultural reference for an entire country. Now, after the severe drought affecting Bolivia has ended, the lake seems to recover. Until when?
The short film by Azadeh Deghani, winner of the We Art Water Film Festival 3in the category of micro-animation, shows with tenderness how an ecological disaster can be an emotional blow that leaves a wound in our memory.
The drying up of Lake Urmia, similar to that of the Aral Sea, is a lesson we need to learn. The main character in Childish blue gives us a clue.
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