Sundance. Flow: For Love of Water.

"Much of Flow deals with the inevitable clash with capitalism as water supplies become privatized by corporations around the world and the poor are literally charged for what falls out of the sky or what they take out of the ground," writes James Israel at indieWIRE. "Critical of those who are beholden more to their stockholders than the poverty stricken people of parts of Africa and South America, Flow condemns this alarming trend and offers other alternatives to clean water, such as inexpensive, community owned water co-ops used in India, as well as other ways to conserve this essential element. A tight 83 minutes, Flow tackles a number of issues regarding what will be the 'oil' of the 21st century."

Updated through 1/31.

"Even the World Bank gets knocked in the film for funding massive water diversion projects that have displaced 80 million people, instead of smaller, cheaper and more eco-friendly community projects to bring fresh drinking water to the poor," notes the AFP's Michel Comte.

At Filmmaker, director Irena Salina writes a bit about what she learned making the doc.

Online viewing tip. At Zoom In Online, a "Meet the Artists" interview with Irena Salina.

Update, 1/31: "Far from the festival's most polished documentary but, by a hair, its most galvanizing," writes Sam Adams in the Philadelphia City Paper. "Irena Salina's urgent and unsettling film is an unrestrained attack on corporations like Suez and Vivendi, who have privatized a substantial portion of the third world's water supply at the expense - and rarely to the benefit - of its poorest residents. In a remote South African hamlet, the villagers pay more per gallon than affluent city dwellers; those who cannot afford it drink standing or polluted water, and frequently die of it."

Posted by dwhudson at January 30, 2008 3:16 PM