World Water Day Tribute - DC Film Fest

Carnegie Institute of Washington DC and the DC Environmental Film Festival
Washington DC, United States, 22 Mar 08

www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org

Saturday, March 22, 11:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Carnegie Institution of Washington

World Water Day Tribute

Welcome by Peter O’Brien, Managing Director, Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital

Opening remarks by Guest Curator Linda Lilienfeld

Spots from the competition of the International Water and Film Event at the World Water Forum, Mexico City, 2006:

11:00 a.m.
AGUAS CON EL AGUA (Mexico, 2006, 50 sec.) United States Premiere The fun ends when two animated characters run out of water. Directed by Ruben Silva.

UMBRELLA (India, 2004, 90 sec.) United States Premiere Desperately seeking to regain his lost umbrella in the midst of a torrential rain, a man suddenly has a bright idea. PSA Produced by Center for Science & Environment.

11:15 a.m.
WATER FIRST (USA, 2006, 43 min.) World Premiere Shot in Malawi and South Africa, this film highlights the significance of water in relationship to many other global concerns, including poverty, disease, girls’ education, gender equality, population control and the care of HIV/AIDS patients. Charles Banda, a preacher and retired fireman, founded the Freshwater Project in Malawi, which has drilled 800 wells in 10 years to bring potable water to one million people without any support from outside organizations such as the World Bank. The contentious issues of pre-paid water meters in South Africa and privatization of water utilities are examined in the context of ethics, lifeline rates and the right to water. Directed by Amy Hart and produced by Hart Production. Winner of Third Place Prize at International Water and Film Festival, World Water Forum, Mexico, 2006.

Discussion with filmmaker Amy Hart.

12:10 p.m.
TIROL—LAND OF WATER (Austria, 2006, 8 min.) Dedicated to the beauty and treasure of water in the setting of the impressive mountains of Tirol, this film spotlights glaciers, waterfalls, lakes and rivers reflecting the magic of this precious and vital element running through the Alps. Directed by Johannes Koeck.

12:20 p.m.
THE STAVE WEIR IN LUCERNE (Switzerland, 2006, 35 min.) In the midst of the city of Lucerne, Switzerland, where the Reuss River, freshly emergent from the Lake of Lucerne, narrows and gains in tempo, stands a stave weir to oppose its flow yet not always with the same resistance. Sometimes it is wide open, and then again closed shut, always waxing and waning to regulate the lake’s water level to the desired height. The weir has seen it all: flash floods, droughts, fires in town, lives lost and saved, tourists, businessmen, new restaurants and celebrations. While time and technology were prancing ahead all about, this old weir resisted both the waters and modern progress. This cinematic portrait of Lucerne’s 150-year-old technological monument was created to preserve knowledge of this early hydraulic achievement. In English and German with English subtitles. Directed by Nora de Baan and produced by the Museum of History, Lucerne.

1:00 p.m.
RIVERGLASS (Slovenia, 1977, 41 min.) This poetic river ballet was inspired by the Soca River flowing in the Julian Alps of Slovenia. Four years in the making, the film is the result of the director’s everlasting fascination with the forces of movement in nature that contain universal principles of life. Capturing the river from a unique, as yet unseen perspective, Riverglass exposes, in the words of its director, “the magical underwater world of turquoise volumes, flying bubbles, pulsating sun membranes and dancing stones.” Directed by Andrej Zdravic.

1:45 p.m.
VILLAGE OF DUST, CITY OF WATER (India, 2006, 28 min.) This lyrical and chilling cine-poem explores social exploitation over access to water in India, where rural water supplies are redistributed to serve booming cities and other communities are displaced to create dams. Hopes buried in the concrete of a failed, dry canal; a parched well used as a storage tank; a village forced to eat grass after years of drought and a party that boasts of artificial rain for its guests are among the vignettes provided. Poetry, accompanied by music, complements the interviews and documentations taken from many sides of each critical water issue. Directed by Sanjay Barnela.

2:15 p.m.
SWITCH-OFF (APAGA Y VAMONOS) (Chile, 2005, 87 min.) A tale about a usurped nation, a forgotten genocide, globalization and a river, this film centers around the Biobio, one of the longest rivers in Chile, which flows from the Andes to the Pacific. In 1997, the Spanish hydroelectric company ENDESA decided to build a dam on the Biobio River to form the RALCO hydroelectric power station. From the beginning, the original inhabitants, the indigenous Pehuenche-Mapuche people, made their opposition clear, seeking protection under indigenous law. When the flooding of the Ralco Valley started, 70 indigenous families were displaced and “invited to live in the high mountains” at 2,000 meters. Mapuche spokespeople who have denounced the situation of their brothers have been persecuted and convicted by Chilean courts. Winner, Best Film, Ecocinema, Athens, 2005; Winner, Best Film, Planet in Focus, 2005.

4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Panel Discussion: Global Water Challenges
A panel of experts will address the challenges faced by one-third of the world’s population involving global safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene. Diseases, primarily diarrhea, associated with unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation, kill five times as many children in developing countries as does HIV/AIDS and twice as many children as malaria. These deaths are almost entirely preventable by ensuring that communities get safe, affordable and sustainable access to drinking water and improved sanitation facilities.
PANELISTS:
David Douglas, President, Water Advocates and Water Lines
Tanvi Nagpal, Director of Water and Sanitation Initiatives, Global Water Challenge Melanie Nakagawa, Head of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Global Safe Water Project
John Oldfield, Director of Partnership Development, Water Advocates
Mark Van Putten, Founder and President of ConservationStrategy

6:00 p.m.
FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER (USA, 2008, 93 min.) Washington, D.C. Premiere Water is the essence of life, sustaining every creature on this planet. Without water there would be no life on earth, but the global water supply isn’t just at risk, it’s already in crisis. We can no longer take this precious resource for granted. Roused by a thirst for survival, people around the world are fighting for their birthright. In Africa plumbers reconnect shantytown water pipes under cover of darkness to ensure a community’s survival; in California a scientist forces awareness of shockingly toxic public water sources; a CEO of a billion-dollar water company argues that water privatization is the wave of the future; in India a “water guru” sparks new community water initiatives in hundreds of villages and in Canada an author uncovers the corporate profiteering that drives global water business. With an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, corruption and human rights, this film ensures that the precarious relationship between humanity and water can no longer be ignored. While specifics of locale and issue may differ, the message is the same: water and our future as a species are quickly drying up.
Directed by Irena Salina. Selection, 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Introduced by Flo Stone, President and Founder, Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital.
Discussion with filmmaker Irena Salina.

All World Water Day Events are FREE.

Carnegie Institution of Washington, Elihu Root Auditorium,
1530 P St., NW (METRO: Dupont Circle, Q St. exit)

Contact: Kelly Novak