Thirst -- Documentary

FREE FILMS ($5 suggested donation but no one turned away)

Sunday June 19th 7pm
Thirst- Documentary
Population growth, pollution, and scarcity are turning water into "blue gold," the oil of the 21st century. Global corporations are rushing to gain control of this dwindling natural resource, producing intense conflict in the US and worldwide where people are dying in battles over control of water.
As revealed in "Thirst," the world is poised on the brink of epochal changes in how water is stored, used, and valued. Will these changes provide clean water to the billions of people who need it? Or save the child who dies every eight seconds from contaminated water? Examining water conflicts on three continents, "Thirst" shows that popular opposition to the privatization of water sparks remarkable coalitions that cross partisan lines. When it comes to water, many people demand local control and fear the arrival of multinational corporations with large lobbying budgets and little local loyalty.
In many ways, the Bolivian city of Cochabamba, India's Rajasthan state, and Stockton, California, occupy very different rungs of the global economic ladder. But in one respect at least, these communities are strikingly similar. They each found themselves threatened with losing public control of their water resources to multinational corporations. And they each fought long odds in resisting the juggernaut of globalization, which is driving the worldwide privatization of public resources, utilities, and services.
Without narration, "Thirst" dramatically reveals this growing storm through charismatic characters, tense confrontations, and cinema vérité footage. In Kyoto, Japan, corporate leaders and citizen activists assemble at the World Water Forum, the largest gathering of its kind, to discuss what Mahmoud Abu-Zeid, President of the World Water Council, describes as "one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century." In Cochabamba, the third largest city in Bolivia, the World Bank presses the government to grant exclusive rights to the city's water to an international consortium led by Bechtel Corporation. When rates jumped 30-300%, people of all economic classes poured into the streets, crying, "Basta! Enough!" The confrontation climaxed when a 17-year-old was killed by a government sharpshooter.

Following film we will converse to discuss the fight to change the world and create peace.

Delicious Vegan & Vegetarian, Café Delicacies Available

Argus Film Series
Red Victorian Peace Café
1665 Haight St @ Cole
San Francisco, CA 94117

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Contact: sanfrancisco@argusfest.org