film rec

[buria_q]

A Drop of Life by Shalini Kantayya



ETA: Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZSCDnNn478

Synopsis:

"Set in the near future, A DROP OF LIFE is the 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 after a pre-paid water meter is installed, she decides to take action.

Nia, an ambitious young African-American executive, represents the interests of Hydron, a Manhattan-based water corporation. Nia goes to this Indian village to demonstrate Hydron's new pilot project water pump that dispenses water with a swipe from a pre-paid credit card. When Nia finds herself in need of drinking water without a pre-paid card, both women must confront the horror of this system."


"The more I researched and read about water, 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, 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.

The water meter in A DROP OF LIFE was originally created to illustrate a frightening future where water is the planet's most scarce natural resource. But then I learned that this frightening future, a world in which water is reserved for only those who can afford it, exists today. The science-fiction water meters I had imagined already exist in ten countries including South Africa, Brazil, and impoverished areas of the United States.

This "coincidence" has affirmed my belief that this story has the power to move, inspire, and mobilize people to act on this vital issue."