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Those precious drops

Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow, who've made an alarming documentary on water, say it all began with their personal experience

PROVOCATION ENOUGH Kaufman (right) and Snitow: `Large corporations might control everything, including the air we breathe and the water we drink' Photo: BHAGYA PRAKASH K.

"Water isn't a sexy enough issue for most people," says Deborah Kaufman, co-director of Thirst, a lucid and alarming documentary on water privatisation around the world. And she is right. There is hardly any hue and cry about ongoing attempts by various governments to hand over basic public amenities to private enterprise.

Thirst, which she wrote, produced, and directed along with Alan Snitow, is actually one of the first films to deal with the issue that will fundamentally affect how we live in the future. The character-driven film without narration is centred on a movement against privatisation of the water system in Stockton, California, and buffered by footage from Bolivia, India and Japan. It was screened at the Alliance Francaise as part of the 2006 Tri-Continental Film Festival, which showcased documentaries on human rights issues from the global south.

Orwellian nightmare

For Kaufman and Snitow, the film began partly from personal experience. Living in California, they suffered blackouts, brownouts and skyrocketing power prices caused mainly by the failures of deregulation of the energy industry. Simultaneously they found that the now-discredited Enron, a major player in the power industry then, also had its fingers in the water privatisation pie. As they dug deeper into the sector, they found that much of it was controlled by the European corporations with incredible power and an almost-invisible presence, which provoked them to make the film. "It's almost like something out of a sci-fi film, large corporations controlling everything, including the air we breathe and the water we drink," says Snitow.

While the common belief is that a move to the private sector from the public ensures greater efficiency and proper management of resources, the film counters that private corporations are under no obligation to deliver to the people. "There is this mythology that corporations can do everything better," says Snitow. "But governments are answerable to people. Most multinational corporations, on the other hand, are above the control of individual governments."

A prime example of corporate abuse, Bechtel's actions in Cochabamba in Bolivia, features prominently in Thirst. There, immediately after the water distribution system was auctioned off to the U.S.-based multinational Bechtel, residents experienced an incredible price hike of between 30 to 300 per cent. When across-class protests erupted, the Bolivian Government imposed martial law, finally resulting in the death of a 17-year old peaceful protester, Victor Daza, at the hands of a government sniper. Although the film shows a perspective that is almost too frightening to imagine, little of the issue gets reported in the mainstream media. The primary reason, explains Kaufman, is that unlike most other resources the availability of water is taken for granted. Even when people's movements do occur, they are not covered by the media. "Even the main paper in Stockton didn't cover the protests happening there," she adds.

Snitow's and Kaufman's previous film, Secrets of Silicon Valley, tackled another subject close to Bangalore's hearts, the alternate reality of the IT industry. Secrets exposes a face of Silicon Valley, U.S.A., that is hidden under the glitzy view often touted by sections of the media, explains Snitow. "There are thousands of people, working in non-unionised jobs and handling toxic materials that people don't know about. Most people think computers are assembled in heaven." Coincidentally, one of the protagonists of the film is of Indian origin, and hails from Karnataka.

While Thirst has succeeded to a certain extent in kick starting a debate on water privatisation, it isn't a comprehensive guide on the issue. Kaufman and Snitow are therefore working on a book that will cover issues that were not documented in the film. For example, in the course of making Thirst, they encountered instances of civil society movements being co-opted by corporations. In many cases, private companies hired PR agencies, says Snitow, to bring together a handful of people such as bankers, realtors, businessmen and so on, and form phoney grassroots organisations that push the corporations' point of view. The film doesn't document many successes in the battle against water privatisation either. A small rural community in the U.S., for instance, got a referendum passed to raise taxes and fund the buy back of the water system. The book will track the water privatisation process in 10 cities in America, and also deal with the various alternatives to privatisation.

Water might not be a hot enough issue yet. But for much of the world in swimmingly high spirits, the film Thirst might indeed be a long-overdue sobering experience.

RAKESH MEHAR

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