If you spend the workday sipping on a Dasani or Aquafina, you might think the plastic bottle is the only environmental problem. Instead, with Atlanta still in a drought, consider the contents.
A new documentary, "FLOW," examines the looming catastrophe over humans' most precious resource: water.
French director Irena Salina's film — the title compresses "For Love of Water" — premiered at Sundance and has been nabbing awards everywhere it's shown, from the 2008 Mumbai Film Festival in India to Colorado's Vail International Film Festival.
Salina will introduce the movie's local premiere at 7 p.m. Sept. 28 at the Paideia School, 1509 Ponce de Leon Ave., Atlanta. ($5; students free with ID)
Among other matters on a local and global scale, "FLOW" argues that a "domineering world water cartel" — the Coca-Cola and Pepsi companies are leading players — is muscling control of dwindling fresh water supplies away from public oversight.
"The market is amoral," says an expert in the film, "and it's going lead you to selling [water] to those who can buy it and not those who need it."
We recently reached Salina at her home in Brooklyn and asked her about the wet stuff.
Q: Where did your interest in water start?
A: About seven years ago there was an article in The Nation about how water will be the oil of the 21st century — how it will shape international politics. Wars could be fought over water rights, fertile regions could become deserts. I was also a new mother then, and I was fascinated and I was concerned. And since 2004 — when we started the project — consumption of bottled water has exploded.
Q: Yet demand and supply lines must vary widely from one region to the next.
A: Yes, but water has no passport. In "FLOW," I go back and forth between what we'd call the first world and the third world, the rich and the poor countries.
We are a little spoiled; we take water for granted. But in the U.S., 40 percent of rivers and water sources are too polluted to swim in. The pollution is part of the story. And [the use and misuse] of water is happening on many levels — the tons of plastic bottles, made from petroleum products, in landfills and dumped into the sea. It takes three liters of water to produce one bottle, incredible waste. And there's rotting old infrastructure in many cities, where people don't trust their tap water. We could go on and on. It's urgent.
Q: You don't sound optimistic.
A: No, I think there's hope. Look at how people are starting to skip plastic shopping bags and bring their own. We're human, we resist change until we become conscious of the problem and then awareness leads to change. Some people will have to make noise, and then others will follow. I don't have faith in big corporations or the polluters, but I have faith in people.
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