These women say this is the first time they’ve ever been to a theater. Some have never seen a movie.

As we pass into the theater, a few look confused as ushers hand out thick dark 3D glasses. The seats fill up so people sit on the steps and in the aisles. And then the lights go down.

Indigenous viewers are impressed by the 3D graphics in Avatar for many, it's their first time in a movie theater.

The movie tells the story of a planet called Pandora, home to the indigenous Na’vi. They’re fighting to protect their forests from a company set on mining a rare mineral called “unobtaneum.”

When it’s over, I speak with Mayra Vega. She’s 24 years old and head of the Women’s Association of the Shuar Nation. She says Avatar hit home for her people.

Mayra Vega, 24, Director of the Women's Association of the Shuar Nation, travelled overnight from the Amazonian city of Macas to see Avatar on the big screen.

“It left a huge impression on us. For example, the movies are almost real. It’s an example that makes us think a lot because the indigenous are defending their rights. We have to defend just as the indigenous so clearly defended in the movie. We had an uprising we had a confrontation with gases; it’s the same as what we just saw in the movie.”

Vega says just like in Avatar, the Shuar are fighting to protect their land from mining companies. And they’re not the only ones.

The Kichwa Community of Sarayaku took on CGC, an Argentine Energy company. Marlon Santi is President of the National Indigenous Confederation of Ecuador and a Sarayaku native. He sees the Sarayaku case as a real life Avatar story, where the indigenous triumphed over the oil company. But unlike in Avatar, they didn’t use violence.

The Sarayaku Case is one of the emblematic cases in the struggle for territorial and environmental defense, and for human rights.

Another case involves the Waorani: beneath their territory in Yasuni National Park lie 846 million barrels of oil. Yasuni is a biodiverse hotspot that’s often referred to as a grand lung of the earth. It is also one of the few places left on earth where uncontacted indigenous groups live in isolation. Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has offered to forgo drilling in this pristine environment… if the international community will pay Ecuador more than three and a half billion dollars … about half the value of the oil. But Correa has recently questioned the deal causing an uproar at home.

At a reception after the film Marlon Santi says he hopes the president will ultimately bow to public pressure and keep his commitment to preserve Yasuni. And he thinks Avatar could help with that.

“Honestly, this is the first time I’m seeing this movie, and it’s reality, what’s happening now just in another dimension.”

Veteran Achuar leader Luis Vargas tries out the 3D glasses.

Others say there was at least one thing in the movie that veered from their reality Achuar leader Luis Vargas says it’s where the white guy sweeps in to the rescue. But he says that’s to be expected.

“This is a Hollywood movie, so it’s practically a given that a mestizo comes to the defense and leads (the people) to triumph in the end.”

Still, he liked the film and his fellow Achuar leader Ernesto Vargas says he hopes another group will get a chance to see it.

“Think of how much better it would be if we showed this film to people who actually want to exploit petroleum. I think it would serve them very well, even more than us.”

As for Ecuador’s President Correa, he saw the movie with his children the day after it premiered in Ecuador. No word yet on what he thought of it.

For the World, I’m Melaina Spitzer in Quito, Ecuador.

Video produced by Siegmund Thies.

The film broke through the “one billion dollars in ticket sales” barrier this past weekend. That’s thanks in part to big international audiences. “Avatar” is already the most successful movie EVER in the country we want you to name today.

Art: Arne Hückelheim

This country has 11 time zones — with an estimated 1300 movie screens. And Avatar sounds like THIS over there… What language can you hear there — other than the fictional Na’vi?

And which country ranks third after France and Germany in international ticket sales for Avatar?

That’s for you to ponder and for us to reveal in just a bit…

It took just 17 days. US ticket sales account for about a third of Avatar’s success. The rest comes from overseas. So far France is the top international market. The movie has raked in more than 85 million dollars in ticket sales there. Next is Germany. An THIRD is the country we asked you to name in our Geo Quiz today.

Allan Cullison reports in the Wall Street Journal today that — in less than 3 weeks — Avatar has become the most successful movie ever in.

Russia…The answer to our Geo Quiz.

Surf’s up for today’s Geo Quiz. You can catch the perfect wave off the coast of the island we’re looking for.

It’s part of French Polynesia…so that puts us in the South Pacific Ocean. The island’s about 400 square miles…and it’s a beautiful place. The French painter Paul Gaugin certainly liked it there.

Today, it’s especially popular with tourists. And those waves! You won’t find better surfing anywhere. In fact, a 3D IMAX film about surfing is being shot on the island.

The film is expected to premiere in five months. But you’ve got a little more than five SECONDS to come up with the answer.

We were looking for an island location in the heart of French Polynesia where shooting is underway for an IMAX surfing movie.

The name of the island is Tahiti.

National Geographic explorer Jon Bowermaster has been watching the shoot. Now Jon — help us out a bit. The islands of French Polynesia are scattered over a million square miles of ocean….and there are around 130 islands. Does Tahiti have the wildest, most dangerous, most perfect surf wave?

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I think the word “eclectic” would be a good way to describe this week’s podcast. Of course, “freaking cool” would also be another way to describe our stories this week. Rebecca Bray and Britta Riley, right, are a case in point. WTP’s own Cyrus Farivar ran into Britt and Rebecca at this year’s Ars Electronica 2009 festival in Linz, Austria. The theme for the festival this year is “Human Nature,” and it doesn’t get much more human or natural than, well, waste. Britt and Rebecca, you see, were in Linz to show people how to turn their urine into fertilizer. They’ve got a DIY system to do just that, and they’ll walk Cyrus, and you, through it on this week’s podcast. Oh, and if you think the urine to fertilizer story fits the Human Nature bill, wait until you hear the other story Cyrus unearths in Linz. It’s called The Earth Angel, and it’s proof that the need to go green has pushed into new territory. In this case, the erm, “adult sex toy” industry. Oh, let’s not be prudish. The Earth Angel is a wind-up vibrator. Cyrus and fellow tech reporter Sonja Bettel, an Austrian herself, give it (a very platonic) test run on the podcast.

A couple of podcasts ago, I told you about a cool project by some cyclists in San Francisco. They’re using GPS and other technologies to map out routes around San Francisco. Not just any routes, though. When they ride the route, the software draws that route on a map. The drawing, if done right, turns out to be, in this case, some well known Atari characters. In my excitement, I may have made it seem like this is something new. Not so, and long-time listener Brett Stalbaum let me know it. Brett teaches computers in the visual arts at UC-San Diego. So, I invited him on the podcast to give us the low-down on the great mash-ups between GPS and art. Brett’s done some really cool stuff himself, as you can see. Thanks to Brett for agreeing to be on the podcast, and for setting me straight.

And we end with the beginning of the podcast, actually. Reporter Akiko Fujita tells us about a student project at the University of Nagasaki. Students and their professors are collecting the memories of those who survived the U.S. atomic bomb strike in August of 1945. The idea is to recreate, in 3D, what the Urakami neighborhood of Nagasaki looked like before the war. Here’s the video I promised:

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Akiko also sent along this short video:

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: Students at the University of Nagasaki are attempting to recreate a community that a nuclear weapon destroyed. The Urakami neighborhood in Nagasaki was ground zero for the second atomic bomb the US dropped on Japan in World War II. That attack killed an estimated 39,000 people and it destroyed most pictures of life in Urakami before the war. The students are recreating prewar Urakami with the help of memories and 3D technology. Akiko Fujita sent us this report from Nagasaki.

BYONDOK JUN: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

AKIKO FUJITA: Byondok Jun sits in an empty computer lab with a dozen photos in hand. Some are blurry, other faded. The 48-year-old University of Nagasaki professor inspects each one in search of clues to the past.

JUN: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

FUJITA: He points to an aerial shot of Nagasaki to show where the University Hospital was. That tiny box to the right, he says, is the medical school.

An American war plane snapped that picture in August 1945, two days before the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city. The US released the photo a few years ago. The black and white image gave Jun the first glimpse into life here before the nuclear attack.

JUN: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

FUJITA: The more I stared at the picture I saw trees, buildings, heard laughter from people on the ground, he says.

The image inspired Jun to recreate a 3D aerial image of the neighborhood.

[SOUND CLIP OF STUDENTS SPEAKING ABOUT PHOTO]

Students Yurika Uchijima and Kanouka Maeda asked to take the project a step further for a graduate thesis. The students wanted to include the street corners, homes, and churches – bring back the entire neighborhood digitally.

KANOUKA MAEDA; [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

FUJITA: Maeda says she’d heard stories about Urakami through her Peace Studies class and her grandmother, an atomic bomb survivor. Maeda immediately connected with the project.

There weren’t many photos that survived the Nagasaki bombing so the students struggled to visualize the neighborhood. They walked down Urakami streets, knocked on every door in search of atomic bomb survivors and their memories of happier days. That search led them to Yoshitoshi Fukahori, a survivor who had spent 30 years collecting pictures of Nagasaki for the city’s Foundation for Peace.

YOSHITOSHI FUKAHORI: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

FUJITA: Fukahori was a teenage student in 1945. He says Urakami was a community that opened its doors to everybody. The neighborhood operated like one big family and shared in each others joy.

FUKAHORI: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

FUJITA: He remembers the day his sister sang on the radio. Everybody crammed into the local barber shop to hear her voice. Fukahori wasn’t home the day of the bombing but his sister was. He found her dead with his uncle and aunt when he returned home a few days later.

The emotional stories have turned an academic project into a personal one. The students spend hours comparing notes on the color of the brick at Fukahori’s old church. They mull over the location of a post office sign where four women gathered for a photo. So far they’ve digitally recreated a tenth of Urakami’s buildings but they say there are limits to 3D.

YURIKA UCHIJIMA: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

FUJITA: Yurika Uchijima says she wanted to bring back the joy the survivors felt in these homes but a computer screen doesn’t convey emotions. It’s hard to get a real sense of Urakami without hearing the stories. Uchijima and Kanouko hope to finish the map by December when they graduate. As for the map’s future use, Professor Jun sees it as a tool for peace – one that creates a window into another lifetime that a nuclear weapon wiped away. For The World I’m Akiko Fujita in Nagasaki, Japan.

WERMAN: If you’d like to see some of the 3D recreations of Nagasaki we’ve got a short video on our website. Just visit The World dot org.

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