Whose Water?

I grew up splitting my time between the shores of Lake Huron and metro-Detroit, so I feel an existential duty to protect water and understand our relationship with it. Growing up in Metro Detroit, one of the country’s most segregated regions based on class and race, I saw how narratives about communities influence policies directed against them. In 2013, I first began making films about water when I traveled to Kenya to create a resource for a Maasai community attempting to regain access to their ancestral water sources amidst accusations that they were not “responsible” enough to steward this resource. In 2014, I began working with community organizers to create films to be used as organizing tools that documented the tragic effects and bold resistance to the short-sighted policy of mass water shutoffs for nonpayment. In this work, produced in a sustained yet rapid manner, it was important to counter narratives that blamed Black Detroiters for their own circumstances. In 2015, I worked with the ACLU to help bring to light the lead contamination of Flint’s water, supporting activists attempting to get their message out in a media climate where nobody was talking about the crisis.

In 2017, Michigan activists convened a gathering of communities across the country to share their unique but all too common experiences fighting for access to water. At this gathering, it became clear to Michiganders that Detroit’s water shutoffs and Flint’s lead crisis were not isolated instances. I teamed up with the People’s Water Board Coalition in Detroit to foreground a widespread water crisis manifesting in many ways across the US, and the need for national human right to water legislation. In my previous work on water, I had experienced the power of communities when they have access to narrative-shifting tools, and learned from the deep knowledge of activists. Thus, for Whose Water, I worked closely with communities to understand the cultural context of their work--staying in their homes, developing relationships prior to, during and after filming, understanding how their communities have been represented compared to how they would like to represent their communities, co-writing narration, hosting multiple feedback sessions and funding the contributions of local musicians. Having witnessed the media storm around Flint, I learned that in this film it was important to go in depth in understanding the multifaceted, unique root causes behind each community’s struggle, while avoiding sensationalizing the issue, as well as to draw common connections between these places.