H2O Q&A: A Chat With FLOW Film Director Irena Salina
Mark Twain once said, “Whiskey is for drinkin’, water is for fightin’ over.” In Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary, FLOW, which opens this Friday, the global battles to own, protect, and understand water are virtuously examined. Experts have labeled the world water crisis the most important political, social and environmental issue of the 21st Century, and with 3,900 children dying every day from water borne diseases caused by the lack of access to clean water, one can see why this is a critical issue.
In our conversation, Irena Salina shared her thoughts about the spiritual nature of water, the Earth’s fever, and what needs to be done to alleviate the crisis:
You spent five years making this film. Why do you think it’s so important for people to care about water?
The earth is made of almost 70 percent water, and we are made of almost 70 percent of it. Without it, we won’t exist. From the moment we are born, to when we are adults we are surrounded by water and it is one of the main things we need to live. And we need clean water because ever 8 seconds a child dies from diseases from unsanitary water. There is so much to water and most people don’t know about it.
What is your relationship with water, and how did that change as you made the film?
It completely changed. I had my first child a few years before making the film. When you have a child it makes you look at the environment and water differently. And when I started making the film, a friend who is Native American told me that water is a very powerful entity and she said, “This film is going to transform you.” Little did I know that on a spiritual and human level, it would be a complete transformation for me.
When I was researching and doing interviews for the film, I did a lot of traveling. Sometimes I had to travel by myself, and I’d see poor places and people with nothing, and meet activists and politicians. I saw so much. During that time, the refuge for me, the place where I could recharge myself, was near water. My meditation was near water. That balanced me throughout making the film. If we look back in time, we learn that water has been used to cure people—it has been a healer. It is sacred. You can see it in ancient religions. Water is ancient, and there’s liberation around water. I think in modern society people are removed from it. The respect for water is not there. I think we need to fall in love with water all over again. It’s like when you have a child with a fever, you take him to the hospital for care. The earth has a fever right now. If it were a child, it’d already be in the hospital.
Was it difficult to convince investors to help you make a film about water?
Very much so, it was very difficult. I would sit in meetings with people in New York, and they would say, “Who wants to see a film about water?” Even though it was in the news, people still didn’t care about it as much as now. It was a topic that was ahead of its time when I first started the film. It’s so much in the news now.
I read that an article in the Nation in 2002 first got you interested in water issues. There is so much to this topic; did you ever feel overwhelmed by all the research you had to do to learn about all the different aspects of the water crisis?
I felt more than overwhelmed. At the very beginning, if friends called me to have dinner, I would say “No, I have to read a 40 page paper on hog waste water pollution!”
The first two years I was doing research, I was going really deep learning about diseases, deaths, toxins in water, etc, and I felt really affected. I started to have recurring dreams of whales. I would be in the ocean and I could hear the singing of the whales. At one point I had a dream where there was this body wrapped with plastic floating in the water. It was scary! I was absorbing so much, so I knew then that I had to take a step back. I could continue to research and meet people and learn, but not let it affect me so much.
Knowing so much about all the problems around the world related to water must be daunting. How do you deal with it?
I’m a very positive person, and I have met so many amazing positive people that do so much. For example there’s that man in the film from India, Shri Rajendra Singh, who went to a village that was completely abandoned because there was no water. And he went and revived knowledge they already had of ancient rainwater harvesting. They call it “johad.” Now you go there and you see life—crops growing, jobs, families. When you see that and you see people who don’t have much, you see their will and organization, it can only give you hope. I think there’s always a solution, though you need the will and the people to get involved to make it happen.
Many people in this country and around the world don’t know about the water crisis because they are not exposed to that information. What do you think it will take to make people more aware and more concerned about water?
People are becoming more and more aware of it because people hear more about drought, and people know about the chemicals in water. They see an article here and there. A film. I think the first thing is going to be awareness. Like it was at first to get people to recycle. First it’s awareness. I think eventually people will care, because it’s about their children, its about them, their health. I would hate to see that it takes “a fire in their backyard” to get people to react. Because there is so much going on know. We have to act now, not in five years. If dialogue starts know and action starts in five years—that is not good enough.
The fact is that everyone can do their part, but many people don’t know how or what to do. What do you think are steps people can take everyday to save water?
So many little things. If you turn off the tap while you brush your teeth, that’s something. You can put less chemicals in the water, use cleaning products that are biodegradable, phase out purchasing plastic water bottles. Drink tap water, conserve rainwater to use for gardening. Low flush toilets, showers. Not use high water consuming plants in gardens.
FLOW is eye-opening in so many ways. What would you like people to take away from watching your film?
If people watch the film and think differently about water, that’s already so much. I think the first step is awareness. Whether they are angry, or don’t like the film, or love the film, it will start a conversation.
Can you tell me more about the formation of Article 31 and what you hope it will accomplish?
That’s [producer] Steven Starr’s baby. Water has been recognized as a human right, but it is not an article in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And different groups around the world would like to have water formally recognized as a human right. This Article was written with the goal to present it to the UN and have them add it to the declaration.
Any last words?
I just hope people can see that’s it’s all connected. We sometimes forget because there’s so much going on, so we forget to connect the dots. The earth is a living organism. Take the Amazon forest. It produces 20 percent of the world’s oxygen, and it absorbs carbon dioxide, and it is key to our survival. And yet they are putting down one tree after another. Forests the size of Texas are being destroyed. And it’s all connected. We don’t see what is going on there but it effects out lives, the air we breathe. We live in the world of ipod, iphone, icomputer. We are going to have to shift a little. We have to make the connections.
Irena recommends that you check out the following link:
An official selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Flow opens this Friday in New York and Los Angeles, and nationwide in the following weeks. For theatre listings, click here.
*Read my review of the film here.
*This interview is part of Eco Worldly’s week-long focus on water issues around the globe.
Photo Credit: www.flowthefilm.com
[...] * Read my Q&A with Irena Salina, the film’s director, here. [...]