In 2079, worldwide drought and nuclear plant meltdowns have diminished the earth’s water supply by 88 per cent. The only hope for survival is to send war criminal Grant Clarke to Jupiter’s distant moon, Europa. Clarke must obtain a sulphur-based bacteria and get it back to earth in time to decontaminate the nuclear waste and save the world’s water supply.
That’s the plot of Europa, a 17 minute thesis film directed by David Gidali and produced by Avi Quijada for the American Film Institute (AFI). Post production of the AFI student film was completed in December 2011 and we can’t wait for its release.
We are also still eagerly awaiting the release of another sci-fi water film, Shekhar Kapur’s Paani. Elizabeth director Kapur announced the plans for his big budget film (the cost has apparently increased from US$ 30 million to US$ 50 million) at Cannes in 2010, but so far there is no confirmation that filming has actually started.
Related news: Global water crisis gets Bollywood Sci-Fi treatment, WASH News International, 18 May 2010
Using the example of Darfur where militants took over villages after poisoning wells, Jan Eliasson illustrates the link between peace and access to clean water. He then explains the importance of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7, which aims to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
Jan Eliasson is chairman of WaterAid Sweden, former Minister of Foreign Affairs in Sweden and since 2010 he serves in the UN Secretary-General’s MDG Advocates Group.
Millions of people across the globe celebrated the 4th annual Global Handwashing Day on 15 October 2011, emphasizing the importance of handwashing with soap as an effective, simple, and affordable way to prevent disease.
UNICEF Pakistan launches ‘Sabu’
Over 1 million children took part in Pakistan, where UNICEF supported the launch of a new animated children’s character, ‘Sabu’, to help teach children the importance of handwashing with soap.
Celebrations in Afghanistan, Eritrea, Peru, India
In Afghanistan, 1.7 million children from 1,700 schools washed hands; in Eritrea, 326,809 children in 1,272 schools did the same. In Peru, the government declared a national handwashing week as of 10 October, and events involved 3.5 million students in 20,000 schools. In India, eight million children in Rajasthan and all 154,000 schools in Uttar Pradesh participated in handwashing events (listen to Head of UNICEF’s hand washing campaign Lizette Burgers on UN Radio).
Liquid Gold - Children in the Central African Republic pump clean water from underground. Photo: Marielle van Uitert
This photo won the first prize for professional photographers in the MDG Goal 7 (Ensure environmental sustainability) category of UNDP’s Second Annual Picture This photo contest. This year’s competition drew attention to the quickly approaching deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Marielle van Uitert. Photo: EO
Dutch photographer Marielle van Uitert (36) took her prize-winning photo in the Central African Republic in March 2010, on behalf of the Dutch aid organization Cordaid. The children in the photo live near an orphanage there.
“These children were so happy to finally get some clean water,” Marielle says. “They sometimes do competitions to see who can be the first one to fill the bucket with water.”
Filming for a major motion picture addressing the global water crisis will start in November 2010. Award-winning director Shekhar Kapur presented his new project Paani (Hindi for water) at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival.
Kapur has teamed up with global water activist Maude Barlow, whose book “Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water” inspired the film. Swarovski Entertainment and Walkwater Media are providing the required US$ 30 million funding for Paani.
Alexander Koll (Swarovski Entertainment), Maude Barlow with Shekhar Kapur, David Farr (screenwiter) and Manmohan Shetty (Walkwater Media) at the Paani press conference in Cannes, 13 May 2010. Photo: Getty Images
Paani (Water) [is a] a love story set in a futuristic city [Mumbai] where water appears almost to have run out and corporations war over its control.
Kapur spoke of his broader environmental motive in making the film, which features a city divided into conflicting halves in which the upper echelons hoard the water and drip-feed the slums of the lower city.
“We want and have to get this story out there as widely as we can … One of the key drivers behind the project is an aim to bring the growing global issue of a world without clean drinking water, and the threat to humanity it represents, to the top of the global political agenda,” he said.
Kapur linked-up with activist Maude Barlow after meeting documentary maker Irena Salina and seeing her film Flow.
“I have been wanting to make this movie for a long time,” Kapur said. “Irena said ‘you have to read Maude’s book.’ Blue Covenant was the spark that coalesced the idea.”
Barlow says she’s thrilled at the prospect of working on the movie and Kapur has asked her to be an adviser — to help him keep the serious message from getting lost.
“I introduced him to what’s happening with the privatization and corporate control of water and the struggle to keep it public,” she said. “He told me that I had given him a big piece in the puzzle. He wants Paani to be more than a science fiction film but one that is about the true place we’re headed to if we don’t change course.”
For Barlow and other water activists the prospect of a mainstream movie devoted to their cause is major boost.
“It’s a whole other vehicle and whole new venue for telling the story,” said Barlow
“We’re hoping to reach a whole new audience with Paani — people who think water comes from a tap or a plastic bottle. Lots of people are blissfully unaware of this as an issue. So getting a movie made by the best of the best is really exciting for us.”
In the film, the daughter of the chairman of the world’s largest water corporation descends into the deprived lower city level where she gets kidnapped by a young water warrior. As the film progresses the two fall in love.
The leading male role in Paani will be played by Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan. The Oscar winning team behind Slumdog Millionaire are also involved. Director Danny Boyle will be the producer, while AR Rahman is composing the music. Jill Bilcock (Moulin Rouge) will be the film’s editor, and John Myhre (Chicago, Memoires of a Geisha) will be responsible for production design.
Sets will be created in India, and there will be location filming in Singapore and Dubai (for the upper city scenes) and in Mumbai (for the slum scenes).
Shekhar Kapur first thought about making Paani ten years ago when he met a rural politician who told him that the amount of water used to flush a toilet in the city is what an entire family in a village can use for three days.
That got me thinking. Then, a few months later, I went visiting this really rich guy who lives at Malabar Hill. He was showering while I waited for him outside, and I could hear the constant flow of water inside and he didn’t emerge for a good half hour.
Later, on my way home, I saw this long queue of women and girls — there were hardly any boys — waiting with buckets to fill from a water tanker. That’s when the idea of Paani struck me. The film is not so much about the scarcity of water — that is something we know about already — but about the fact that water is what will eventually distinguish between two classes: one which gets it freely and one which doesn’t.
Kapur envisages a world where water scarcity and commercialisation, especially as a result of urbanisation, will spark conflicts.
Control over groundwater needs huge funding and control over the local government — it’s all about power. Those who have the power control the water and drip-feed the rest of the population. Paani will basically be about water wars between these two classes.
At the press conference at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, Kapur challenges his backers to drink slum water from Mumbai.
“I’ve got this water from the slums of Dharavi, and if you are committed to the film, you’ll drink this”. He said that not all the bottles contained slum water, only a few did. But they were mixed up with regular water, and they all looked alike – full of brownish water labeled Valentine’s.
“It’s like playing Russian Roulette,” said Kapur, and he took a swig from his bottle, as did the others joining him at the press event [Alexander Koll, Maude Barlow, Manmohan Shetty and David Farr].
Indian film director and producer Shekhar Kapur is most well known for his films Bandit Queen, Elizabeth and its sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
Follow updates about the film Paani on Shekhar Kapur’s blog and on Twitter.
Jane Catherine Shaw, co-director of the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival, takes on world drought in “Thirst: Memory of Water,” her newest puppet theatre work. Shaw’s work concentrates on themes of women and water because. “Around the world women are carrying (literally) the burden of maintaining life by walking for water”, Shaw wrote. The play ran in New York’s La MaMa Experimental Theater Club from 25 March to 11 April 2010.
The play’s narrative is compiled from first-person writings about Ethiopia, China, Bangladesh, Korea, Japan and testimonials from Haiti, Tanzania, and the Jenin Camp on the West Bank. There will also be newspaper accounts from Saudi Arabia, excerpts from the Rig-Veda, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Treatise on Water, and Book Six of The Aenead. Texts have been assembled through The Common Language Project, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, 1h2o.org, WaterAid America, All China Women’s Federation, Voices for Creative Nonviolence (Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator), and from personal recollections of the all women cast.
Manu and the Fish from the sacred books of the Rig Veda-Hindu Deluge Story. Photo: Jane Catherine Shaw
Imagery is created using such “theater magic” as elevated rod puppets with dancing puppeteers, shadow puppets, three-person puppets, a small baby puppet and a duplicate giant inflatable baby puppet, a small hand held vignette (performed in the palm of a puppeteer’s hand), and a quasi-toy theater piece depicting the NYC Sand Hogs.
Shaw finds the world’s water crisis, arising in part from global climate change as well as water mismanagement, too compelling to ignore. She says, “It has to do with scarcity and conflict–and whether or not water is accepted as a ‘right,’ therefore everyone should have access to it–or as a resource. As a resource it is a commodity that can be withheld or sold at high prices.”
Her script uses the example of the Mesopotamian Marshes, which were drained by Saddam Hussein in retaliation against the Marsh Arabs, the Ma’dan, after the Gulf War. After Saddam was toppled, Iraqis began to tear down the dikes and canals that had diverted the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and many areas of the marshes were re-flooded, but the next drought put the region in peril again. “Today there are many dams upstream of the marshes which restrict the flow of the Rivers and impact the lives of everyone and every animal downstream.” Shaw muses. “Imagine if our treaties with Canada about the equitable use of rivers crossing our borders become difficult to maintain. We already have an existing treaty with Mexico about the quantity of water that is allotted to them from the Colorado River. But, for instance in the 1950′s the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation project pumped out large quantities of water and returned highly saline drainage that was unfit for Mexico’s farmers to use. In 1972 we resolved that water quality issue with a ‘permanent and definitive solution,’ but what happens if we have many years of drought? Will we honor the treaty, or withhold water to sustain ourselves and our lifestyle? It could happen-and it could happen around the world.”
She continues, “The water crisis is too much material for one play, so I chose to focus on women and water because around the world women are carrying (literally) the burden of maintaining life by walking many miles daily to collect water for their families. The more severe the problems become, the heavier the burden on women-and children.” She found a little known style of puppetry from China in which a three foot rod puppet is held over the head of the puppeteer who is costumed and visible as a performer; “I became intrigued with the image of women performers carrying women puppets who are carrying water.” She adds, “I’m interested in this image and hopeful that it will heighten the drama of the story about women and water.” Shaw also delves into mythologies which relate common understandings of water across cultures. Water as the world’s best solvent or as the best spiritual cleanser is a common theme. She notes that deluge stories are found in many cultures and ritual washing is also a universal practice.
The production has music composed by David Patterson. Choreography is by Hillary Spector. Lighting design is by Jeff Nash. Set design is by Gian Marco Lo Forte. Puppets, costume design and construction, script and concept are by Jane Catherine Shaw in collaboration with the all woman cast of Sophia Remolde, Ora Fruchter, Spica Wobbe, Margot Fitzsimmons, Kristine Haruna Lee and Cybele Kaufmann.
The International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance (IRHA) will be awarding three prizes for the best videos on the advantages of the use of rainwater. The duration of the videos should be from 10 seconds to 6 minutes. The prizes will be awarded in December 2009.
The prizes are:
1st winner – CHF 500.00 (US$ 500)
2nd winner – CHF 300.00 (US$ 300)
3rd winner – CHF 200.00 (US$ 200)
Competition deadline: 17 November 2009
For full details of the competition go to the IRHA web site
Cirque du Soleil founder hosts a show from space linking events in 14 world cities to raise awareness about clean water.
Guy Laliberté, whom Bono called "the first clown in space"
Wearing a red clown nose, the Canadian founder of Cirque du Soleil hosted an out-of-this-world performance event on Friday [09 October 2009], saying he wanted to use his trip as a space tourist to highlight the scarcity of water on Earth.
Guy Laliberté’s two-hour performance event called Moving Stars and Earth for Water linked the International Space Station with singers, dancers and celebrity campaigners in 14 world cities in what organizers called the first event of its kind to be hosted from space.
Laliberté paid $35 million to fly on a Russian spacecraft to the International Space Station and become the world’s seventh space tourist. “I decided to use this privilege to raise awareness of water issues,” he said. “I believe that with true art and emotion we can convey a message.”
Celebrities who took part in the event included Irish singer Bono, former U.S. vice president and environmental campaigner Al Gore, Brazilian singer songwriter Gilberto Gil and Oscar-winning Indian musician A.R. Rahman.
Please Save Water, Jai Ho! – the “making of” A.R Rahman’s clip.
Cirque du Soleil acrobats gave water-themed performances from Montreal and Las Vegas and dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet performed from Moscow in a show streamed on the Internet and broadcast on satellite TV in the United States, Canada and Latin America.
Musician Peter Gabriel and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai were the hosts in South Africa, where a clip of children spinning around on a playpump was shown as Ladysmith Black Mambazo sang “Rain Rain Beautiful Rain”.
Billionaire Guy Laliberté launched his Montreal-based nonprofit One Drop Foundation in 2007 to increase access to clean water worldwide.
During the show, online viewers from as far away as Argentina, Australia and India were asked to sign “make a difference” pledges to cut back on bottled water, install water saving devices in toilets and make other environmental savings.
See Guy Laliberté in space and the full webcast of two hour show on the One Drop channel.
Organizers said the event was aimed more at awareness raising than fund raising.
“I thank you for joining the ripple effect,” Laliberte said, ending what he called his “poetic social mission” with a slow-motion shot of droplets of drinking water in the micro-gravity atmosphere of the space station.
International survey finds fresh water pollution, scarcity drive public concern.
Valentin Pérez Hernandez, a young gardener from Mexico City, moves daily between the two water realities of the nation’s capital: though the immense city is roiled by fierce water shortages, fecal contamination, industrial pollution, and old infrastructure that too often fails, the posh Jardines del Pedregal section where he works is a green and colorful oasis supplied with unusual water abundance. Photo: Circle of Blue
A comprehensive Circle of Blue | GlobeScan international public opinion survey on attitudes about fresh water sustainability, management and conservation finds that people around the world view water issues as the planet’s top environmental problem, greater than air pollution, depletion of natural resources, loss of habitat and even climate change.
The poll, funded by the Molson Coors Brewing Company, surveyed 1,000 people in each of 15 countries, and probed 500 in each of the following countries on specific questions: Canada, China, India, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The survey was made public in Stockholm, Sweden, on 18 August 2009 during World Water Week.
The fierce impediments to clean water and sanitation, and the millions of premature deaths from water-related disease are seen as having a greater influence on quality of life and the planet than air pollution, species extinction, depletion of natural resources, loss of habitat and climate change.
More than 90 percent of those polled expressed a conviction that access to clean, fresh water is fundamental, not only for themselves but for all people. Across the globe, respondents to the survey also said education was essential to help people understand the dimensions and the urgency of the crisis.
In response to the survey data, Circle of Blue commissioned some of the world’s best photojournalists to document in pictures and words various facets of the conclusions in seven countries.
A close look at the survey results found considerable consistency, as well as significant variability, in how people view the global fresh water crisis. Among the other consequential findings:
People around the world view water pollution as the most important facet of the fresh water crisis; shortages of fresh water are very close behind. Concern about both issues tended to be higher in developing countries than in developed nations.
People in Mexico and India, which are growing rapidly and rely heavily on agriculture for jobs and economic development, expressed the highest level of concern about water shortages in the farm sector.
In all seven countries, respondents consistently said that governments were the most responsible for ensuring clean water.
The respondents said that large companies were nearly as responsible as governments for ensuring clean water; nearly eight of 10 respondents from the seven nations said that solving drinking water problems “will require significant help from companies.”
In an expression of the results of $1 trillion dollars invested in regulations and water delivery and treatment infrastructure in the last two decades, Americans said they were less worried about safe drinking water and pollution than people in most of the other countries, though more than half still expressed concerns.
Except for India, where 60 percent of respondents said they were “very concerned,” well under half of the respondents in the six other nations surveyed said they were not terribly worried about the “high cost” of water.
Corruption and the water sector are age old friends – they go back a long time. We’re all too familiar with stories of water officials exchanging votes for lucrative engineering contracts or international donor money earmarked for water pipes being spent on limousines. The Global Public Policy Network on Water Management (GPPPN) interviewed three experts at Stockholm World Water Week 2009. GPPPN talked to Teun Bastemeijer (WIN), Ramisetty Murali (FANSA), and Thomas van Waeyenberge (Aquafed) to find out why the water sector is so prone to corruption, and whether we’re winning the battle against it.
(L-R) Teun Bastemeijer, Ramisetty Murali, and Thomas van Waeyenberge
