The Water Front
Directed by Elizabeth Miller
2007, 53 minutes
The Water Front is being presented at the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and at many film venues.
The Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival is the longest-running showcase for international documentaries in the United States, encompassing a broad spectrum of work, from indigenous community media to experimental nonfiction.
About the Film
What if you lived by the largest body of fresh water in the world but could no longer afford to use it?
Water is the liquid gold of the 21st century. While corporations urge local governments to privatize municipal water, communities around the world are organizing to ensure affordable access to this life sustaining resource. The Water Front is the story of one community’s determination to fight the seemingly inevitable path of water privatization.
Highland Park, Michigan—the birthplace of mass production is a post-industrial city on the verge of financial collapse. The state of Michigan has appointed an Emergency Financial Manager to fix the crisis. The manager sees the water plant, which Henry Ford built in 1917 to support his expanding empire, as a valuable resource. She has raised water rates and implemented severe measures to collect on water bills. As a result, Highland Park residents have received water bills as high as $10,000. They have had their water turned off, their homes foreclosed, and are struggling to keep water—a basic human right—from becoming privatized. The Water Front follows the personal story of Vallory Johnson, who transforms her anger into an emotional grassroots campaign, defending affordable water as a human right.
The Water Front is not just about water, but touches on the very essence of our democratic system. The film presents a community in crisis but it also presents the powerful enactment of local participation in finding solutions to the problems of our times.
This community portrait is also an unnerving indication of what’s in store for residents around the world as cities look to update water systems and face increasingly complex issues such as water shortage and the rapidly growing industry of bottled water.
