The Struggle for Mother Water

A Common Good
A Public Trust
A Human Right

Directed by Michael Zelniker

Produced by Martin Cadieux-Rouillard

With the participation of Michael Zelniker (narration)

Water is life. Women are the bearers of life. We are born from water, presaged by the pronouncement from our mothers: “My water has broken.” Without water, there is no life. Without women, there is no life. The ages old connection between women and water runs deep.

•   More than two billion people don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water, including one in five children.

•   More than 3.6 billion people don’t have access to functional, reliable sanitation.

•   1,800 gallons of water are needed to produce one pound of consumable beef.

•   700 gallons of water to produce the cotton for one t-shirt.

•   3,000 gallons of water to produce a smart phone.

•   We humans are made of approximately 70% water.

By 2030, demands for water will exceed what’s available by 40%.

In 2010, the United Nations declared access to clean , safe drinking water and proper sanitation is a human right and that water is a common good, a public trust. Water scarcity, sea level rise, industrial pollution, hydro power development, deforestation, glacier and permafrost melt, climate-induced drought and flooding - issues around water have many manifestations. Unfettered extractive industrial exploitation poisons fresh drinking water sources while at the same time the market driven economy claims the right to appropriate and own it - plastic bottling and selling it for a profit.

All over the world, every single day, women and girls spend 2 million hours fetching water, often walking many miles to secure it. Women on the frontlines are fighting to protect water, to sustain life for their families and communities, often at great risk to their own safety. It is said that the wars of the 20th century were fought over oil, that the wars of the 21st century will be fought over water.

Despite the odds being stacked against them, even as they struggle to meet the basic human needs of life: Food, shelter, dignity, safety… compelled by the urgent call of life, of water, these women courageously lead the fight, seeking and finding solutions to the existential crises facing the natural world and the water that sustains it, straining the very survivability of the human family and life as we know it on Planet Earth.

Rooted in the belief that our last best hope lies in elevating the voices of those who have for too long been ignored, women from every corner of the globe take us along a profoundly personal journey, exposing the often harsh realities they and their local communities are confronting as they struggle to access safe, reliable sources of water, working to find and implement life-saving solutions. And in a unified outcry, these courageous, determined women are the ones who drive the telling of our story about water and women-on-the-frontlines who are seeking water and finding life.

PROJECT IN POST-PRODUCTION