“The Inca Emperor filled a room full of gold. The conquistadors took all of the gold — then murdered him. Five hundred years later, a different company, a different poison. The same people paying the price.” — Brad Townsend, to U.S. Ambassador Rhodes · Silent Allies
In the mountain communities of rural Peru, circa 2000, people are dying. A U.S. Peace Corps biologist named Brad Townsend discovers what the Peruvian government, a powerful American mining company, and their allies in Washington are working hard to keep buried: the water is poisoned with cyanide from the country’s largest gold mine.
Tom Featherspoon is a Special Forces advisor — 7th Group, 3d Airborne — who came to train Peruvian commandos against the Tupac Amaru insurgency. He didn’t come to question orders. But the deeper Brad digs, the more the two men realize the poison runs all the way to the top — on both sides of the American interest in Peru.
An unlikely alliance. One impossible truth. And a jungle full of people who cannot afford for either man to stay silent.
A Film That Moves Governments & Industry to Act
When profit poisons the water of an indigenous people and governments look away — that silence has a cost. The question history asks is never who was responsible. It is who was willing to do something about it. Silent Allies is a cinematic call to the table — for government agencies, international development bodies, and private-sector partners ready to champion clean water, indigenous rights, and the principle that corporate and governmental accountability are not optional on the world stage.
U.S. Peace Corps
Brad Townsend
Biologist · Water Systems · Yanacancha
He came to Peru to build water systems and save lives without weapons. When he finds the cyanide, he must choose between doing it the right way — or the only way left.
U.S. Army Special Forces — 7th Group
Tom Featherspoon
SF Advisor · 3d Airborne Division
Twelve years in. He knows how to fight and how to follow orders. He doesn’t know the Peace Corps kid he can’t stand is about to save his life — and change everything he thought he believed.