Hey World,

FLOW will be hitting US theaters end of summer! We’re really excited to be working with Oscilloscope, a distribution company started by former ThinkFilm execs and Beastie Boy Adam Yauch. This is a GREAT partnership for us as filmmakers; the other great piece of news is that we’ll be playing both the Democratic and Republican political conventions, the DNC in Denver and the RNC in Minneapolis! More on all of this soon.

Elsewhere, as the weather heats up, water stories surface all over the world. Bob Dylan’s just rewritten Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall to highlight clean water issues, and corporate water barons are on the run everywhere.

In Felton California, locals banded together to form Felton FLOW, Friends of Local Water, to reclaim their local water and after six years, have a major victory. It’s an incredible story of pluck and determination, a model for understanding why water utilities should be managed locally everywhere. 

Outside of the US, in a fitting round of justice, French water giants Veolia and Suez are getting kicked out of the their own capital city. The Paris city council announced in early June that the city’s water system would revert to 100 percent public control at the end of 2009, the aim is to keep water prices in the city stable. More here.

“Bottled water is nothing but a corporate hoax to trick consumers into paying hundreds, sometimes thousands, times more for a product than what it is actually worth,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. “Tap water is just as safe and healthy as bottled water, and is a far more cost-effective choice.” More here.  

And here’s a fantastic map from Corporate Accountability Watch charting cities all over the US that are fighting to stem the tide of the bottled water crisis. 

Finally, here’s a wonderful piece about Maude Barlow, hot off the Aussie presses. Maude deservedly just won the Citation of Lifetime Achievement at the Canadian Environment Awards, and is an incredible inspiration to so many people in the global water movement. We’re thrilled she’s getting some well-deserved recognition. 

To water for all, 

Steven

BARCELONA — Barcelona, one of the great European cities, suffers its worst drought since records began 60 years ago, Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the capital, has been the worst-hit region. After months without adequate rainfall its reservoirs are down to just over a quarter of normal capacity. On May 15, a tanker ship from Marseilles will pull into a specially equipped dock in Barcelona’s busy port, connect to a new pipeline, and discharge a liquid cargo essential to the running of the city. The ship will not, however, be carrying oil or petroleum. It is the first of many shipments of drinking water that form part of a program to slake the thirst of this drought-plagued city. 

NESTLE — Nestlé SA said Monday it is scaling back plans in Northern California to build what would have been the country’s largest water-bottling plant. The announcement by Nestlé Waters North America comes after years of opposition by environmentalists and a group of residents in the rural town of McCloud. Nestlé signed a contract in 2003 with the McCloud Community Services District to pump up to 521 million gallons of water a year. In exchange, the Swiss food-and-drink company agreed to pay $250,000 to $350,000 a year to McCloud, a town about 200 miles north of Sacramento. Palais said the company now will seek permission to pump a fraction of that water and build a smaller plant of about 350,000 square feet. Critics of the plant welcomed Nestlé’s announcement.

LOS ANGELES — California communities face a strong possibility of water shortages and even mandatory rationing this summer because of record dry weather in March and April, a fast-shrinking snowpack and below-normal reservoir levels, state officials said Thursday. The bleak news means a second consecutive year of water anxieties in a state heavily dependent on water from the melting snow in the Sierra Nevada. "I have not seen a more serious water situation in my career, and I’ve been doing this 30 years," said Timothy Quinn, executive director of the Assn. of California Water Agencies. An outmoded delivery system and court rulings that protect endangered fish are also straining the system, he said. 

Well, we’ve just heard back from the Vail International Film Festival, where FLOW won the top prize for Best Documentary.  We also won Best Human Interest Film at the Flagstaff Film Festival, and we’re now closing in on theatrical distribution in the US. 

FLOW is on the move! We can feel the momentum building, and we’re thrilled. Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing just gave us a wonderful review, calling FLOW “infuriating and incredible”. Those two words well describe the global water crisis; the more one learns, the more we are motivated to do something! If you are motivated to action, there’s a great list of organizations you can work with on our take action page.

Here’s what BoingBoing had to say:

“I’ve just watched Irena Salina’s incredible, infuriating documentary FLOW: For Love of Water, a film about the often-invisible and underreported global water crisis. Ranging from widespread US contamination to the tragedy of developing nations who are forced by the World Bank to sell their water companies like Vivendi, Suez and Thames, who get sweetheart deals to offer substandard, overpriced monopoly water service, at terrible cost to human life.

Global water profiteering is at the center of a global healthcare crisis that kills more people than AIDS or malaria. The film shows the grim reality of water in Asia, Africa, South and Central America, and the USA. The mortality is awful, and not just from bad water or no water — also from police forces in states like Bolivia who go to war against people whose water supply has been sold to foreign multinationals who are reaping windfall profits while they die.” 

More here.

Onward, Flow!

Steven

According to the Associated Press, a vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.
- Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city’s watersheds.

- Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.

- Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.

- A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco’s drinking water.

- The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.
In a related story, dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company, the Pentagon’s internal watchdog says.

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

More On US Water here

Breaking  news:  FLOW: For Love of Water will be the closing night film at the Full Frame Festival at the beginning of April, and on top of that, we’ll not only be playing the opening weekend of the San Francisco International Film Festival (end of April), but we’re organizing a major water educational panel with the programmers at SFIFF that will have international water experts discussing water across a lot of territory. We’ll get specific dates/times up as soon as we have them.  On we go! 

Steven 

FLOW: For Love Of Water came to Lincoln Center Tuesday night, the reaction was fantastic. Isa Cucinotta and the rest of the crew from the Film Society of Lincoln Center made us feel right at home, and almost all of the several hundred people who came stayed for the Q & A and the reception afterward. 

What follows is the interview Amy Goodman did with Maude Barlow for DemocracyNow! yesterday morning. Maude has a brand new book, Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.  

Here’s the interview with Maude… 

News Flash from Bombay– FLOW: For Love Of Water has won the International Jury Prize at the 2008 Mumbai Film Festival! 

From The MIFF Festival Website: 

The Jury decided to characterize the Award as a recognition of films that bring unknown shocking revelations that threaten ecological and even existential balance of the planet we inhabit. The depiction of a global crisis caused by privatization of natural resource such as water in the film Flow: Love of Water attempts to educate the audience of atrocities major corporations commit against individuals, families and communities in the name of water and for the sake of plain old profit. The message of the film is clear: make water free, clean and available to the citizens of the world. The Jury commends the revealing research Irena Salina brought to bear on the film and unlike our condition for awards at this edition of MIFF, the Jury exempts this film from the obligation of discovering a parallel cinematic form to its content.

This is terrific news, thanks to everyone at the Mumbai International Film Festival for giving us this chance. Winning this award from a jury of international film critics, after the Documentary Grand Jury Prize nomination at Sundance, gives FLOW a wonderful momentum as we launch our global distribution efforts. 

Next stop New York City! On February 26^th, we screen FLOW: For Love Of Water as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Green Screen” series. 

Author and activist Maude Barlow, Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water Watch, William Marks as well as other surprise guests will join Irena, Gill, Yvette, myself and others from the FLOW crew as we premiere the film in New York City. 

Maude will sign copies of her new book BLUE COVENANT, William will do the same with WATER VOICES FROM AROUND THE WORLD, and we have special surprises in store. It promises to be an incredible night, and we hope to see you there!

To water for all, and Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Steven 

Well, we’re back from Sundance.

Our festival experience was truly unforgettable, one amazing moment after another. People came from everywhere to be part of our world premiere; the award for Those-That-Came-From-The-Furthest-Away surely goes to Christophe Julien and Pablo de Silva, our composer and cinematographer. They both flew in all the way from Paris.

So many Flowsters at Sundance! Our globally distributed production team suddenly found itself camped out in hotel rooms, together at last. We all became one instant, happy family — Gill and Augusta Brown Holland, Yvette Tomlinson, Stephen Nemeth, Caroleen Feeney, Matt Parker, Caitlin Dixon, Luis Ortiz Guillen, Katie Hipp, Katrina Rivers, Chidem Ali, Anne de la Baume, Rebecca Rogers, Stella Thomas, Ben Bazinet. All of us together in the same place at the same time for the same reason. Such an inspired crew!

Author and global water activist Maude Barlow joined us from Canada with her incredible new book, Blue Covenant. Author William Marks arrived from New Hampshire with his unprecedented Water Voices From Around The World. Activist Holly Wren Spaulding flew in from Michigan with the latest update on the Nestle situation (the court case continues). 

Each day revealed moments of brilliance; a former Suez employee raising his hand in an early Q&A to express his deep appreciation to Irena for telling the truth; a government employee from New England announcing she’d revisit her efforts toward privatizing her state’s water apparatus after seeing the film. And a never-ending stream of people expressing solidarity and appreciation: people on shuttle buses, the street, in restaurants, all thanking us, regaling us about water issues in their hometowns, their cities, their countries. Water is a big story everywhere. 

Monday we co-hosted a pizza party with IndieGoGo.com, a terrific crew building on online marketplace for indie filmmakers like us. Tuesday we jumped into a van to screen the film for a Salt Lake City audience. No industry, no press, no hype, just a theater filled with local film lovers. 

They were so excited about the film our Q&A went past midnight, which left us totally exhilarated. The next day brought a standing ovation from the biggest Sudance audience we screened for (at the Library). At that moment, I think we all realized our years of work had been worth it, that our labor of love was going to have a life of its own, and a rather significant one at that. 

Word’s gotten out; we’re getting invitations from festivals everywhere, and Irena leaves for Bombay tomorrow. It’s gratifying, it’s what we’d hoped for; now we can start working with the film as a tool, as a means to build awareness about what’s happening with water in different places all over the world. To empower people at a local level to create awareness. To take action. 

We’re also getting great news about our future. We’re not only working through serious interest for North American theatrical distribution (more about that later), but we’ve just finalized an agreement with the prestigious Celluloid Dreams for international theatrical distribution. Here’s our release from this morning:

CELLULOID DREAMS TAPS “FLOW” INTERNATIONALLY

ENVIRONMENTAL DOCUMENTARY BECOMES

FIRST FEATURE FILM TO JOIN 1% FOR THE PLANET

New York, NY – January 31, 2008 – FLOW:  For Love Of Water, which premiered in the Documentary Competition at the recently concluded 2008 Sundance Film Festival, will be represented by Celluloid Dreams internationally, it was announced today by FLOW Producer Steven Starr.  

Additionally, the production team announced that the critically acclaimed film will be the first theatrical film to collaborate with the global environmental initiative 1% For The Planet for its eventual commercial release.  

Filmed in 12 countries, FLOW is represented in North America by Josh Braun/Submarine. The announcements were made today following standing ovations at the film’s Sundance screenings, where interest has grown well beyond the festival premiere. 

FLOW, directed by Irena Salina, focuses on water politics, pollution and human rights while highlighting the local intimacies of the global water crisis. Salina spotlights efforts of people across the globe fighting for birthright access to water, while offering an unflinching look at the precarious relationship between humans and water in the US and abroad. 

1% For The Planet is a growing global movement of 782 companies worldwide who have committed to donate 1% of their profit to a network of more than 1,500 global environmental organizations. 

And so our dreams for global distribution are starting to manifest. We’re delighted to work with 1% For The Planet, they’re doing great work, and we’re honored to be the first theatrical film to join forces with them. We see this partnership as the very beginning of FLOW’s efforts as an engine for change, generating resource for local water campaigns and user-controlled solutions all over the world.   

Ok, that’s it for now. Except to say a very big thank you for all of your email, and your expressions of support and interest in collaboration. On behalf of all of us, it’s deeply appreciated. And we’ll keep you posted on more FLOW news as it develops. Onward ho!

To water for all, 

Steven  

So here we are. 36 days from Sundance. Our site is up, Irena’s hard at work in the editing room, in a final push to the finish.

It’s kind of hard to believe that 5 years ago this month, Irena and I started talking about her vision for a film about water. She was impassioned, amazed that the whole world didn’t see what she saw, what was happening to this life-giving force.

She sent me a Nation article, Who Owns Water? It shocked me just as much as it shocked her; I had never given water much thought, certainly not as a big issue, a geopolitical disaster-in-the-making. So the two of us started on a journey, an amazing journey, one of Irena traveling the world with her camera, with me begging every one I knew to put more travel dollars into our wild-eyed mission.

Caroleen Feeney, Gill Holland, Stephen Nemeth, Yvette Tomlinson…. a steady flow of generous and committed friends got behind us. And how lucky we are! Five years later and five weeks from world-premiering at Sundance, it’s a filmmakers’ dream come true. It’s hard, perhaps impossible, to explain how grateful we all are.

But it’s easy to say how much we’ve all been humbled by this experience: a whole lot. Every single one of us has been affected deeply. Water does that to you.

Water has magic and mystery; it’s what we’re made of, from whence we came. To show a rising tide of crisis all over the world, to see that industry and capital have bruited about this life-giving substance, that our children are dying, that greed is moving faster than reason, is to only begin to understand what we’re up against.

FLOW hopes to show the struggle on the ground, to meet the local heroes, to locate the solutions. There’s no narrator, no one telling you how to think about the people you meet in the film and the places you go. That’s left entirely up to you, and that’s one of Irena’s great achievements as a filmmaker.

It’s our goal to deploy FLOW as an engine for change, to be made available as a tool for those who are fighting for water justice everywhere. So if you have ideas on how to use the film locally, contact us through the site, so when we’re closer to FLOW’s release, we’ll give you more info on how to make that happen.

And please don’t be shy, we’re busy working to support screenings all over the globe. Include yourself. Be part of this. Water is big, bigger than oil. Why? Because you can’t live without it.

If you’re lucky enough to be at Sundance in late January, here are the Sundance screening times for FLOW: For Love Of Water –

Sun. January 20, 8:30pm, Holiday Village Cinema II

Mon. January 21, 12:15pm, Holiday Village Cinema III

Tue. January 22, 9:45pm, Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City)

Thu. January 24, 2:30pm, Library Center Theatre

Fri. January 25, 11:30pm, Holiday Village Cinema II

If you’re not going to Park City this year, please sign our petition and join our mailing list, we’ve got big plans ahead. And if you’d care to help, one easy way is just to link to this site from your own blog, or email a friend to help us get the word out. Thanks, and stay tuned, we’ll be getting a trailer up on the site in the next couple of weeks.

Again, thanks for taking a look, and to water for all,

Steven Starr, Producer

FLOW: For Love Of Water

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