What Would You Do to Protect Your Land and Water?
Working Films designed and facilitated a strategy summit for the photo exhibit and short film-in-progress Water Warriors in May 2015. The project shares the story of a community’s successful resistance against the oil and natural gas industry. Sixteen organizations joined us with the artists, Michael Premo and Andrew Stern, to inform a collaborative plan for positioning the exhibition and upcoming documentary to help build public opposition to fossil fuel extraction, beginning with a pilot series in North Carolina. Participants gave feedback on the layout, design, captions, and publicity materials of the art. These allies included key state, regional and national partners – Appalachian Voices, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL), Clean Water for North Carolina/NC Frack Free Alliance, Earthjustice, and Food and Water Watch. In the session, we seeded a collaborative plan for the exhibition to take place in strategic locations in North Carolina and other states.
Following the summit, Working Films continued partnering with the film team by fundraising to tour the exhibit and complete the film, to support impact campaign planning, and to lead trainings and workshops focused around the topics raised by the project and on using documentary for change.
Water Warriors is now a completed film by Storyline Media. Both the documentary and photo exhibition are available here.
“You educated me, you moved me, and you made my convictions on this subject even stronger.“
- Stacey Sprenz, community member"I thought that that blend of the still exhibit images, punctuated with the intermittent films and talks with our various leaders was a great way to immerse the viewers in the subject."
- Travis Cohn, community member
