Directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal
2007, 90 minutes
Trouble the Water is playing in New York City as part of the New Directors/New Films Festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Department of Film, the Museum of Modern Art. Check out praise for Trouble the Water.
About the Film
Aspiring rap artist Kim Roberts and her streetwise husband, Scott, show what survival is all about when they are trapped in New Orleans by deadly floodwaters and seize a chance for a new beginning.
Directed and produced by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, who are longtime Michael Moore collaborators, and executive produced by Danny Glover and Joslyn Barnes, Trouble the Water features an original musical score by Neil Davidge and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, and the music of Dr. John, Mary Mary, Citizen Cope, John Lee Hooker, and the Free Agents Brass Band—the film also introduces the music of Black Kold Madina.
Directors’ Statement
“We were stunned by the televised images of elderly people laid out on baggage claim carousels at the airport, and bloated bodies floating where streets had been. We wanted to know why the city had not been evacuated before the storm and why was it that help was so late in coming after the levees collapsed. We wanted to make sense of it.”
About the Directors
Tia Lessin was the supervising producer of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes International Film Festival, and the Academy Award-winning Bowling for Columbine. She was also line producer of Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. Her work as the senior producer of the satirical television series, The Awful Truth, earned her two Emmy nominations—and one arrest.
Carl Deal was the archival producer for Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine and has contributed to many other documentaries, including recent Sundance Film Festival audience favorites Murderball and God Grew Tired of Us. He is a 2007 Sundance Institute Fellow. Deal worked for many years as a producer for the European Broadcast Union and Worldwide Television News.
Click here to read an interview with Tia Lessin, Co- Director of Trouble the Water
