EESC info: You are an award-winning journalist and filmmaker who often deals with difficult issues, such as wars and people. This time the subject of your film is water. Why?
Ewa Ewart: The film "Until the Last Drop" tells the story of a different war – the stupidest of all. It is a story about the war man has declared on water – a source of life – in the name of progress. In a broader sense, it is a war on nature. A long time ago, man decided that life on earth should take place on his terms, and that the natural environment is supposed to serve man and his interests. This belief has brought us to the sorry state of our planet.
What challenges did you face while making the film?
I learned about documentary filmmaking at the BBC in London. The 1990s was a golden era for documentaries. There was money, and we travelled the world making films on various fascinating and relevant subjects. I am now a freelancer and I enjoy the freedom that freelancing offers. However, raising funds for a project can sometimes be daunting and time-consuming. I would say this is now my key challenge; getting the money for a film. Compared to that, the rest is plain sailing! Once I secure the budget, I see everything else as a promising and exciting experience. Making a documentary can be unpredictable, so I always have a plan B. More than anything else, I always tell myself that I will make a great film! The biggest challenge I faced with making "Until the Last Drop" was the weather! Almost 100% of our filming was outdoors, and we travelled on a very tight schedule to six countries. So any nasty surprises (weather-wise) could have cost us money and caused severe disruption to our filming plan. But we were lucky.
What role do you think the film industry can play in raising awareness and promoting action on water issues?
Documentaries can play a very significant role in educating and raising awareness. My journalistic background is in TV news, but I found that my passion lies in a longer news format. I love documentary films for many reasons, but one reason is of critical importance: documentaries offer you enough space to tell what happened and why it happened. You have time and space to create an in-depth context for complex events and important issues, and make them easier for a wider audience to understand. When I started working on the "Until the Last Drop", I realised that quite a few filmmakers had already made water-related issues the subject of their films. It was reassuring on one hand, but it also created an interesting challenge for me to come up with an idea that was fresh and unexplored. Well-made films on important issues have the potential not only to educate but to jolt people into action. We have already had many viewings of our film, and there are people coming up to us afterwards and asking what they can do. This is very rewarding.
What inspired you to focus on water?
In 2017, I was working on a film about how the oil industry destroys the rainforest. We were filming in the Ecuadorian part of the Amazon rainforest when a local community leader took me to their river. When he swiped a white latex glove he was wearing on the river's surface, it turned black. A thick, oily layer covered the entire glove. It greatly affected me. I think the encounter planted the first seed for the water documentary.
Why isn't the discussion on water part of the public debate?
One reason is rather simple. Water is still widely available and we take it for granted. Yes, water covers most of our planet's surface, but rivers – the main source of clean, fresh water – are less than one percent of all its resources. News of the millions of people suffering water shortages is primarily reported locally. Somehow we tend to believe that water problems affect faraway countries and are not of our concern. I hope our film will provide a shocking realisation that such a belief is utterly wrong. The other reason is that powerful lobbies behind water pollution and the reckless exploitation of water resources impact and exert a vast influence on political choices.
Fortunately, there are also some positive signs indicating that we are becoming aware that we must change the way we manage water resources. Last March, the first UN water conference in a generation took place. It was a clear recognition that we remain alarmingly off track in dealing with water problems and water-related goals, putting at risk our very existence. Each year, we celebrate World Water Day to remind ourselves that we need to get our act together to solve the water crisis, and since water is a uniting factor for all humans, we need everyone to take action. Let's hope such initiatives will keep growing.
What do you think is the most important thing for people to know about the water crisis?
The water crisis exists; it is genuine, and it keeps growing. It should sink into the collective awareness that time is running out. Unless we radically change how we manage water, we might be heading for a ruthless awakening. This is one of the messages of our film. I hope those in a position to tame the crisis before it is too late will heed this message. One person who appeared in our film asked: "will the planet wait for us to wake up?"
What message you are sending to the European Union and the Member States? And what of the citizens, in particular the younger generation?
This is such a broad question! Firstly, I would like as many people as possible in the EU and in the Member States to watch "Until the Last Drop". And it is not about my vanity! I see the impact this film creates each time we have a public viewing. I want to believe this film will inspire decision-makers to help all these activists fighting for clean, healthy rivers. It is a disgrace that we allow Europe to have the most fragmented riverine system. It is a shame that Italy, the country that so richly contributed to European civilization, flows the most polluted river on our continent. The river Sarno, which was once regarded as a God, also ranks as the third-most polluted river in the world. Our quest for progress and development has turned this river into a foul-smelling corpse.
Is there any hope?
There is hope, and we talk about hope in the film. People are becoming aware that we do not have much time before it is too late to change how we manage water. These people are the activists who do their best to counteract the damage man has already caused to water. I place my hopes in these activists who have first-hand knowledge of the seriousness of these problems. These are the people who live with the rivers, live off the rivers and are the first ones to be affected by the decisions politicians make. The decision-makers should learn from them. We want to turn this documentary into a learning tool to educate about water. Piotr Nieznański, co-author and presenter of the film, came up with a programme called "CodeForBlue" addressed to teachers and young people. Today's youth will soon be deciding how to manage water resources. The current education system does not tell them the whole story about the water crisis. We want to fill this gap. We have started working to launch the programme in Poland.
What we should do now to save the planet?
We must all come out of our separate bubbles and join forces to protect and wisely manage our common, most precious resource: life-giving, fresh, clean water. A politician from the Minganie Regional County Municipality in Quebec, Canada, who supported the local efforts to protect a river and appeared in our film, said: "people want to get rich, thinking that it will make them happy. The economy in Western societies is based on such a way of thinking. If we don't shift our perception of development today, with the changes we see in our region and elsewhere in the world, we will all perish".
Ewa Ewart is a journalist and an award-winning filmmaker who specialises in ground-breaking and influential documentaries. She was born and raised in Poland, but has spent most of her career at the BBC TV in London. She has travelled and worked in many countries, producing and directing programmes ranging from investigations to political and social observational documentaries. Her films have revealed new information about issues such as corruption in Boris Yeltsin's Russia, the secret prison camps in North Korea, the civil war in Colombia and the secret and illegal CIA extraordinary rendition programme for people suspected of terrorism. She has told some of the most memorable stories through her documentaries, such as that on the tragedy in Beslan, made for the first anniversary of a terrorist attack in which more than 170 children were killed. In the second film she highlighted the trauma still suffered by many child survivors five years after the atrocity.
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