Friday, June 12
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Center for American Progress

1333 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20005

for all screenings

The Lake

Director

Abby Ellis

Executive Producers

Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Davvison, Phillip Watson, Jessica Harrop, Caitlin Mae Burke, Rachel Crane, Geralyn White Dreyfous, Anna Barnes, Chai Vasarhelyi, Jiimmy Chin, Heather Kahlert

Producer

Fletcher Keyes

Editors

Abby Ellis, Emelie Mahdavian

Co-Editors

Abby Ellis, Emelie Mahdavian

Cinematographers

Alex Takats, Abby Ellis

Composer

Natalia Tsupryk

A raw, vérité film that follows three individuals fighting to save a dying lake. They see what’s coming—poisoned air, a collapsing ecosystem, a community on the brink—and throw themselves into the everyday, often mundane work of trying to stop it. As they push against bureaucracy, apathy, and the ticking clock of a crisis decades in the making, something eerie and heartbreaking lingers at the edges: dust rising in the background, a reminder of what will be lost if they fail.

THE LAKE is a horror story that transcends traditional environmental narratives. It’s not just a fight to save a lake—it’s a confrontation with the consequences we’ve set into motion. The film asks: What do you do when catastrophe feels inevitable? Where are the lines drawn—and who is willing to cross them?

A reckoning with our choices and systems, but also a testament to the possibility of redemption. The question lingers: Can we save ourselves from ourselves?

Director, The Lake

Abby Ellis is a Peabody- and Emmy-nominated director and journalist who makes films about the moments and institutions that shape us. Her work fuses rigorous reporting with intimate, character-driven filmmaking, bringing the human cost of complex stories into vivid focus.