Across the immense salt flats of Chile’s Atacama Desert, microbiologist Cristina Dorador is searching for microorganisms that could offer a natural response to antibiotic resistance. These bacteria thrive in one of the world’s richest lithium regions, a metal essential for energy storage. Yet intensive extraction practices are compromising this fragile ecosystem, worsening water scarcity in one of the driest regions on the planet. In the seemingly desolate landscape of the Atacama, two global challenges intersect: the search for new solutions to the antibiotic resistance crisis (a health emergency associated with around five million deaths worldwide every year) and the race towards the energy transition.

Elisabetta Perut is a Chilean journalist, filmmaker, producer, and screenwriter, best known for the documentaries Un hombre aparte (2001) and La muerte de Pinochet (2011).

Iván Osnovikoff is a Chilean documentary filmmaker and producer. Since 1997, he has been collaborating with Elisabetta Perut, forming one of the most significant creative duos in contemporary Chilean documentary cinema.