DVD Review by Cate Montana
20 min. Written & Directed by Shalini Kantayya
When award winning filmmaker Shalini Kantayya wrote A Drop of Life, she didn’t realize the terrifying, futuristic corporate-owned water supply system she had imagined was already a reality in several countries, including impoverished areas of South Africa, Brazil, and the United States. There, her science-fiction-like water meters have been installed, and just as she envisioned, they are slowly strangling the life, health and economies of the people least able to afford it.
A Drop of Life is a fascinating wake-up call designed to help deflect a future none of us want to experience. The film depicts the fictional story of two women, a village teacher in rural India and an African American corporate executive, whose disparate lives intersect when they are both confronted with lack of access to clean drinking water.
Mirabai, an impassioned schoolteacher, has left her urban lifestyle to teach in Kutch, Gujurat. When Mira witnesses growing illness among the village children she teaches after a pre-paid water meter is installed, she decides to take action. Meanwhile Nia, an ambitious young African-American executive who represents the interests of Hydron, the Manhattan-based water corporation that has installed the meters, heads to her village on a promotional tour to demonstrate Hydron's new pilot project. The scene that greets her in the village’s dusty square where the water pump that dispenses water with a swipe from a pre-paid credit card has been installed, is like nothing she imagined. When Nia finds herself in need of drinking water without a pre-paid card, she joins Mira’s world, finally confronting the horror of this system.
This 20 minute film, in Hindi with English subtitles, is beautifully crafted and acted, and is an excellent educational tool for individuals, teachers, librarians, and for anyone concerned about the availability of fresh water on this planet for all human beings in the years to come.
Kantayya is a passionate advocate for the preservation of indigenous water rights. “The more I researched and read about water,” she says, “the more I became convinced of the vice president of the World Bank's Ismail Serageldin's statement on the future of war. ‘If the wars of the twentieth century were fought over oil,’ he said, ‘the wars of the next century will be fought over water.’ I found the statistics alarming; between one-half and two-thirds of the world's population will not have access to drinking water by the year 2027.”
Shalini Kantayya is a filmmaker, educator, and activist who uses film and video to educate, inspire, and empower audiences. She launched 7th Empire Media, an independent production company with the mission of offering a voice to the unheard through media. Her films have received recognition from the Jerome Foundation, the Public Fund for Media, the IFP, Third Wave, and the NY Women in Film and Television. A William D. Fulbright Scholar and American Institute of Indian Studies Senior Performing Arts Fellow, Shalini has lectured at colleges and universities across the U.S. and India. She is currently working on a trilogy of science fiction feature films about the environment.
Thirsty to make a significant impact on the world? Become part of a national campus tour featuring a screening of the award-winning A Drop of Life, and Q&A with activist / filmmaker Shalini Kantayya. Themes covered in the screening include water privatization, art and activism, eco-feminism, and media studies. Shalini will offer strategies, workshops, and opportunities for open dialogue. For more information 7thempiremedia.com
WATER FOR THOUGHT
Compiled by Tara Lohan, managing editor at AlterNet.com
Demand for water is doubling every 20 years, outpacing population growth twice as fast. Currently 1.3 billion people don't have access to clean water and 2.5 billion lack proper sewage and sanitation. In less than 20 years, it is estimated that demand for fresh water will exceed the world's supply by over 50 percent.
The biggest drain on our water sources is agriculture, which accounts for 70 percent of the water used worldwide - much of which is subsidized in the industrial world, providing little incentive for agribusiness to use conservation measures or less water-intensive crops.
Water scarcity is not just an issue of the developing world. "Twenty-one percent of irrigation in the United States is achieved by pumping groundwater at rates that exceed the water's ability to recharge," wrote water experts Tony Clarke of the
Polaris Institute and
Maude Barlow of the
Council of Canadians in their landmark water book
Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water.
The Ogallala aquifer - the largest in the North America and a major source for agriculture stretching from Texas to South Dakota - is currently being pumped at a rate 14 times greater than it can be replenished, they wrote. And, across the country, "California's Department of Water Resources predicts that, by 2020, if more supplies are not found, the state will face a shortfall of fresh water nearly as great as the amount that all of its cities and towns together are consuming today," add Clarke and Barlow. Demand is outstripping supply from the rainy Seattle area to desert cities like Tucson and Albuquerque. And from Midwest farming regions to East Coast cities. The crisis is also worldwide, most noticeable in Mexico, the Middle East, China and Africa.
A senior executive at a subsidiary of Vivendi, the world's largest water controller summed it up, "Water is a critical and necessary ingredient to the daily life of every human being, and it is an equally powerful ingredient for profitable manufacturing companies."
But when private companies control water resources, people's needs for survival are pushed aside in place of the bottom line. In Africa, an estimated 5 million people die each year for lack of safe drinking water. And yet Africa, with its many cash-strapped countries, is targeted by multinationals that force governments to turn over their public water systems in exchange for promises of debt relief. When corporations control water, rates go up, services go down, and those who can't afford to pay are forced to drink unsafe water, risking their lives. This has happened across the world - in South Africa, in Bolivia, in the United States.
