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April 19 screening, talk, workshop
Filmmaker to discuss world water crisis, urge action
Monday, Apr. 9, 2012
PULLMAN, Wash. - Internationally recognized filmmaker and eco-activist Shalini Kantayya will give an interactive talk about shortages of drinking water around the globe at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 19, in the CUB auditorium at Washington State University.It will include a screening of her futuristic sci-film, "A Drop of Life: Inside the Mounting Water Crisis.”
She also will give a workshop on filmmaking and activism at 1 p.m. that day in Smith CUE 512. Both events are free to the public.
"Shalini points out that there are no borders to this crisis,” said Kelsey Kracher, president of the WSU Environmental Science Club, main sponsor of the events. "We’re especially excited that she plans to relate this global issue to eastern Washington and let us know what we can do about it.”
Kantayya said her evening talk will fuse the personal and political. It will span water issues ranging from the aquifers of eastern Washington to the deserts of western India.
"An estimated two-thirds of the world’s people won’t have adequate access to clean drinking water by 2027,” said Kantayya, who urges her audiences to become part of the solution.
"A Drop of Life” won Best Short at the Palm Beach International film festival, a Crystal Dior nomination at Tokyo Short Shorts, and will be used as a tool to organize for water rights in 40 villages across Africa. Her feature screenplay, "Dark Tide,” inspired by water shut-offs affecting 90,000 Detroit residents, is a finalist at the Mumbai Mantra/Sundance Screenwriters Lab.
The Brooklyn-based Kantayya finished in the top 10 out of 12,000 filmmakers on Fox’s "On the Lot,” a show by Steven Spielberg in search of Hollywood’s next great director. She won Best Documentary at the Asian American Film Festival for her film "Manthan.”
The mission of her production company, 7th Empire Media, is to create a culture of human rights and a sustainable planet through wildly imaginative media. Her clients include the American Civil Liberties Union, History channel and Link TV.
Kantayya’s visit is co-sponsored the WSU colleges of Education, Science, Liberal Arts, Communications, Engineering and Architecture, Business and Honors; the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences; School of the Environment; the departments of Politics and Philosophy; the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies; the Center for Environmental Research Education and Outreach; and WSU Libraries.
Contact:
Kelsey Kracher, WSU Environmental Science Club, kmk232@comcast.net
Kelsey Kracher, WSU Environmental Science Club, kmk232@comcast.net
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