Deep within the Colombian Amazon lies the “Intangible Zone,” a legally protected territory home to the isolated Yuri-Passé people, who have chosen to remain disconnected from the outside world. This extraordinary region, teeming with biodiversity and cultural heritage, is the focus of Intangible Zone, a compelling 14-minute documentary directed by Colombian filmmaker Greg Méndez López in collaboration with the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT).
Produced as part of the Solutions Storytelling Project, an initiative supported by the Skoll Foundation and led by the Video Consortium, Intangible Zone brings to light the critical importance of safeguarding both the land and the Indigenous communities that have served as its guardians for generations.
“Creating Intangible Zone was one of the projects where I felt the deepest spiritual connection,” said Méndez. “It allowed me to reconnect with ancestral roots and identity, as I traveled through the Amazon from its heart, alongside the communities that have historically protected this land.”
For nearly 30 years, the Amazon Conservation Team has worked hand-in-hand with Indigenous communities to uphold their cultural ties to nature and defend the Amazon’s increasingly threatened ecosystems. While the isolated Yuri-Passé people themselves do not appear in the film, Intangible Zone provides a rare glimpse into the lives of their protectors—the neighboring Curare and Boricada peoples—against the breathtaking backdrop of the Amazon’s lush forests and winding rivers.
“Adapting to the Indigenous way of life, sleeping and eating as they do, was not easy, but it was key to the project’s greatest achievement — earning their trust and being able to portray them authentically,” Méndez shared.
Filming in this remote region was not without challenges. Beyond the dense jungle environment, the area is fraught with risks from the presence of outlaw groups vying for control over drug trafficking routes and the illegal extraction of gold and timber. Despite these dangers, the Amazon Conservation Team has remained steadfast in its mission to protect the Indigenous communities that call this land home.
A major milestone in this effort was recently achieved when, for the first time in history, Colombia’s Ministry of the Interior officially recognized the territoriality of Indigenous groups living in voluntary isolation, including the Yuri-Passé people in the region between the Caquetá and Putumayo Rivers. This recognition comes decades after a rare, documented encounter in 1969, when military officials captured an Indigenous family living in isolation. The family was taken to a nearby town before ultimately being released back into the forest. Following this encounter, there were no formal reports of contact or acknowledgment of their existence—until now.
How to Watch
The Intangible Zone will be available online in the Fall of 2025, after its festival run. If you’d like to host an online or in-person screening of the film in partnership with the Amazon Conservation Team, let us know by completing this form.
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