Toroboro

Sarmiento, M. (Director). (2026). Toroboro: The Name of the Plants. EPF Media. 103 minutes. Toroboro is a documentary that illustrates how quickly colonial expansion, disease, and resource extraction can decimate not only unique plant life, but an entire culture and way of life as well. The documentary begins in the vein of a longitudinal study returning to an old biological study site but quickly changes to focus on the people who called the study area home and how much their lives had changed. The footage of the forests and plant life gives viewers an opportunity to see the Amazon from the perspective of those who call it home while zooming in enough to illustrate the species diversity and importance of each species encountered. The interviews include a number of people that remember a time before the community was first contacted and their experience of first contact, the death it brought, and how their lives changed following contact. It also helps put into perspective the importance of leaving uncontacted communities alone and the dangers contact brings told through the stories of those people with first-hand experience. This film excellently blends biology, botany, anthropology, habitat destruction, and environmental destruction making for a great class resource.