Water: Fluid For Life

More than two decades after the Clean Water Act was supposed to make America’s waters clean enough for swimming and fishing again, two iconic waterways — the great coastal estuaries of Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay — are in perilous condition. With polluted runoff still flowing in from industry, agriculture and massive suburban development, scientists fear contamination to the food chain and drinking water for millions of people. A growing list of endangered species is also threatened in both estuaries. As a new president, Congress and the states set new agendas and spending priorities, FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith examines the rising hazards to human health and the ecosystem, and why its so hard to keep our waters clean.

Everyone has a skeleton or two in his or her closet, but what about the director behind some of the most successful thrillers ever to hit the silver screen? Could M. Night Shyamalan be hiding a deep, dark secret that drives his macabre cinematic vision? Now viewers will be able to find out firsthand what fuels The Sixth Sense director's seemingly supernatural creativity as filmmakers interview Shyamalan as well as the cast and crew members who have worked most closely with him over the years. Discover the early events that shaped the mind of a future master of suspense in a documentary that is as fascinating as it is revealing.

Draped in an electric blue fabric, the artist acts as a conduit between the tangile and the spiritual, blurring the boundaries between human form and natural elements.

Filmmakers Jordan Reclus and Mathieu Ciulla travel through the South of France, investigating an elusive water vein with the help of water engineers and well-known local dowsers. A documentary offering a glimpse into the unsuspected routine of water through the little-known prism of dowsing. Water does not always seem to flow the right way…

Beneath the millions of gallons of water that flow into homes across eastern Massachusetts is a story of buried history, scientific discovery, & individual hopes & dreams destroyed in the name of progress. Edward Klekowski, a UMass biology professor with a passion for scuba diving, chronicles an unprecedented search for the remains of four lost towns under the Quabbin Reservoir in Belchertown, MA

The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds all the voices of the earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures. Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret of two mysterious buttons which were found on its ocean floor. Chile, with its 2,670 miles of coastline and the largest archipelago in the world, presents a supernatural landscape. In it are volcanoes, mountains and glaciers. In it are the voices of the Patagonian Indigenous people, the first English sailors and also those of its political prisoners. Some say that water has memory. This film shows that it also has a voice.

The beauty of April, the sun, when the joy of life returns.

A renowned expert begins an investigation into the origins of seagulls and their unsettling behavior. Where did they come from and where are they going next? Is this just a local mystery or the beginning of something far worse?

Haro auf das Wasser! Flüsse in Not

A reflection between nature and man in Los Angeles about the city's surroundings' desertification due to enormous water consumption.

Les Pouvoirs thérapeutiques de l'eau

OASIS, a documentary that tells us about water's historical role in Western Sahara via the true stories of people who turned this wild desert into a place full of life.

A Movie about Water, Thievery, and Being a Prisoner to Conventional Thoughts.

Take a four-minute journey to some of the planet’s most spectacular glaciers, waterfalls, beaches, rivers and waterways. Destinations include, Iceland, Igauzu Falls Brazil, Atchafalaya Basin Louisiana, Lake Tahoe California, Black Canyon of the Gunnison Colorado, and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

A film essay that approaches cinema as a water current, revisiting a body of previous essay films through the recurring image of water—rivers, seas, tides, and flows—to explore cinema as a fluid space of memory, movement, and transformation.

At the heart of the Moroccan High Atlas mountains, water is a resource in short supply. The village of Tizi N'Oucheg has undergone a transformation thanks to Rachid Mandili, who is well-aware that the development of his village depends on access to clean water and on his strong leadership of this project. Mandili rallies all the villagers together and calls upon the knowledge of French and Moroccan scientists to tap water sources, to purify, and reuse waste water for irrigation. The documentary highlights the Berbers' community ties and ingenuity in their dream of independently managing their village water resources. It equally paints a portrait of a man whose initiative and resourcefulness has opened Tizi N'Oucheg up to modernity while still conserving its cultural heritage. Tizi's example presents some of the problems of water access in semi-arid regions and puts forward concrete solutions to these problems.

A visual and interpretative journey through the filmography of Andrei Tarkovsky, in search of the hidden meaning behind the recurring presence of water — a central and mysterious element in his work. This video essay analyzes the scenes in which water appears, organizing them by theme: from everyday actions to metaphysical moments. An attempt to understand whether, behind the poetry of natural elements, lies a deeper message from the russian filmmaker.

Flow & Rive

The Green Desert presents a dazzling kaleidoscope of vineyards, date ranches, and bell pepper farms in the Coachella Valley near the Salton Sea. The much larger Imperial Valley harvests leafy greens by the truckload, delivering over 1 billion servings a year. The alfalfa it grows is the bedrock of the food supply chain, making dairy and meat production possible. A total of 90% of the winter vegetables consumed in the US are produced in these two regions. Without them, the nation’s food security would vanish. Both of these regions rely on imported Colorado River water, a resource dwindling by the year. The need for conservation has never been greater, but will desperate measures be enough? The era of limits has been reached. We are at a crossroads. The future of the American West will be shaped by the choices we make.

Des histoires d'eau : la piscine