Thirst

"We're water. Planet Earth is surrounded by water, but every year three million people die of thirst or because of unhealthy water." At the beginning of the documentary, the voiceover makes clear whose side director Mausi Martinez is on in the debate about water, which is increasingly geopolitical in nature. "The future wars will be fought for water," according to Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1980. He is one in a long line of interviewees - politicians, journalists, activists, environmentalists - with whom Martinez addresses two main issues. Firstly, the expanding United States military presence around the Guaraní Aquifer System (GAS), a huge underground reservoir located in the four Mercosur countries of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. If exploited well, this reservoir could provide the entire world population with drinking water for 200 years. Secondly, the withdrawing government and the privatisation of drinking water supplies under pressure from international financial organisations such as the World Bank. These are ways for multinationals to gain control over drinking water. The step-by-step explanation with talking head interviews is alternated with instructive animations, split-screens, archival footage and shots of nature that demonstrate the beauty of the flora and fauna in the GAS. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)