Presentation and screening: “Waterdrops”

waterdropsCrisis Mirror is offering a non-commercial alternative for the screenings at the CPH:DOX festival together with documentary filmmaker Nelly Psarrou, who will give a talk about water privatization and present her film WAteRdrops. A Q&A session will follow the screening. The event takes place on Thursday, the 13th of November, from 19.00 at Støberiet (Blågårds Plads 5, 2nd floor) and it is open for everyone, free of charge.

WAteRdrops demonstrates how the privatization frenzy we are currently witnessing in Europe is by no means limited to the sales of state owned enterprises and other public assets. The ownership and control of common resources at large are also increasingly transferred into private hands. At the worst, this poses a direct threat to the very foundations of our lives – as it is the case with the privatization of water.

The dangers related to the water privatization are not a future probability but an already existing part of the present reality. Through five case studies from Greece, the documentary analyzes different aspects of the privatization process and describes how it can take place in various forms, both directly and indirectly. Beside of selling water sources or networks for private investors, water is also been practically privatized in less obvious ways. Ruthless efforts to maximize private profits can limit people’s access to water even if the particular resources are not actually sold. Such enclosures of common water supplies are created for example through contamination.

This makes the film especially relevant in the Danish context, since the extraction of the shale gas is about to start in the country. It is an activity that brings along the risk of serious contamination of groundwater due to the chemical fluids used in the hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as “fracking”. This is the main reason why the technique has been banned in many places – latest in the Texas town of Denton, where it was allegedly invented.

But WAteRdrops is not only a film about the maladies caused by water management serving the accumulation of private profit. It is also an account of local struggles against the grabbing of common resources. These often unnoticed struggles are battles of the imminent war of tomorrow – the War for Water – fought already today.

Watch the trailer.

Read more about the documentary.

Join the Facebook event.