science fiction dystopia and it became a documentary. Which is very disturbing.
Q: Water is an issue that impacts the lives of women and girls the most. Can you talk about the framing of and centering on women characters in this story, and more specifically, women of color?
A: On the average, women in Africa and parts of Asia walk 15 kilometers every day to collect water. It often keeps young girls out of school because they have to carry the weight of collecting water for the family.
I began to see that if you’ re talking about gender equality, you’ re talking about water. If you’ re talking about women’ s rights and the rights of women and girls in the developing world, you’ re talking about water.
I felt it was a more complex story because the corporate executive is African-American. We have some sense in her historical memory of water as sacred. There’ s a short baptism scene where her character is torn between the way she’ s been brought up by her family and grandmother and the corporate world she inhabits. I thought this relationship between these two women around water was a powerful one.
Q: Speaking of the relationship between water and people, at the end of the film you offer the following endnote,“ Who controls water controls life.” What do you believe the connection between water and privilege is? What we can do to change that?
A: I think the truth is simple and terrifying: the demand for water is greater than the supply. We want to believe this is like a Star Wars movie in a galaxy far, far away but there are no borders to this water crisis.
We’ ve seen in places like Flint, Michigan what happens when there’ s corruption around water, and the dangers we have in places like New York around fracking. We’ re beginning to realize it can be gone in a moment, this thing that we take for granted.
As water becomes incredibly scarce, corporations are vying for every last drop to privatize and profit from this life-giving substance. Water is a human right that cannot be bought and sold. We are the stewards of water for future generations. It’ s our job to make sure it stays clean, that it stays accessible, and that it stays in the commons gathered by everyone.
Q: How has the film been used beyond the screen? How has it been utilized as a tool for education and activism?
A: I’ ve always been an eco-activist. My love for filmmaking and my love for stories of the underdog have always been central to the kinds of stories I tell.
What I had was a passion to do something and tell a story. I never really dreamed it would be an organizing tool for someone to use in 40 villages across Africa, where it was taken off laptops and translated from the English subtitles into the provincial African languages and used as a way of talking about
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