Deep dive: World Water Film Festival wants movies to help save the planet

When is a film festival not just a film festival? When it's trying to use art to save the world.

The inaugural World Water Film Festival is happening on Sunday at the Columbia Climate School’s Water Center in New York City. The free festival coincides with New York Water Week, (March 18 to 24) and the United Nations’ 2023 Water Conference (March 22 to 24), and the March 22 observation of World Water Day.

These concurrent events are all fighting for the future, working to secure and preserve a natural resource that’s vital to all life on Earth. This year’s World Water Day “is about accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis,” according to its website.

And the World Water Festival, according to founder and CEO Robert Strand, is hoping to enlist members of the general population into its universal cause.

“Hardly anyone in our country has heard of World Water Day,” said Strand. “So this idea got into my head: Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could onboard filmmakers to be exploring each year’s World Water Day theme with the scientists and with the policy makers, but in different ways to sort of amplify what the crises are, the issues are. What are the solutions?’ ”

Across three floors of the Forum at Columbia University, the World Water Film Festival will showcase short and feature films, interactive exhibits, workshops, guest speakers and a summit on women in water energy and film led by Youth for Global Health and Social Justice founder Dr. Sheryl Simmons. That summit will also stream online, with films available to view virtually via Eventive from March 20 to 26.

“My hope is to bring the creatives and the filmmakers into the conversation and (into) action with the policy-makers and the scientists,” said Strand, an activist and filmmaker himself. “Because there are some amazingly wonderful people doing some really important work, and when you get into it, it’s really interesting work. ... So many weird, different things are happening, and not enough people are aware of it.”

The festival is presented in partnership with International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre, Youth for Global Health and Social Justice, and the Brave Blue World Foundation, and supported by BlueTech Research.

Among the festival highlights are Brave Blue World Foundation’s preview of the upcoming “Our Blue World,” the successor to the 2020 Netflix documentary “Brave Blue World,” as well as documentary shorts on searching for freshwater mussels, the issue of “forever chemicals” in Europe, the importance of horseshoe crabs, and the national nonprofit swimming and water safety organization TankProof.

“The whole hope that we want people to walk away (with) ... is to realize that you can identify as a water advocate, there are things that you can do,” said Strand. “Not just come watch some films, but we want people to leave really being inspired to look at careers in water if you’re interested in making a career change — but also learn that there are things that you can do to be a part of the solution of various water crises around the world.”

Go: World Water Film Festival, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, March 19 at the Forum at Columbia University, 601 West 125^th St., New York City; worldwaterff.org.