Description: This short documentary was produced in 2018 by GTANW, IWGIA, Ore-media, and Canejo Producciones. It chronicles the Congress of the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation, held in 2017 in the community of Kandungos, on the Santiago River in the Peruvian Amazon, on the border with Ecuador. The film documents the self-governance process of this indigenous people, who in 2015 unilaterally declared their territorial autonomy as a nation, and explores their own conceptions of time and water as central categories of their relationship with the territory.
Teaching ideas: Before watching, students can reflect on the title and discuss in pairs what they think this phrase might mean, drawing on their own associations between time, water, and the environment. This is a good opportunity to practice expressing hypotheses and opinions using structures like “creo que,” “puede significar que,” or “me parece que.” After watching, students can describe the setting, the community, and the congress they observed, practicing the use of the imperfect tense to convey ongoing or habitual actions in the past. A group discussion can then explore the concept of indigenous territorial autonomy: what does it mean for a nation to govern its own territory, and how does the Wampis Nation’s declaration relate to broader debates about land rights and environmental justice in Latin America and the rest of the world? Finally, students can return to the title and write a short reflection on how the film reframes conventional notions of time and nature, using comparative structures to contrast this worldview with more familiar ones.