- Welcome to POV.
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut.
"Water is life, and clean water means health."
That is a quote from actress Audrey Hepburn
that could easily be applied to the plot of tonight's film,
The Age of Water, a documentary set in La Cantera,
a small town in rural Mexico
that lost a dozen of its residents
to a rare form of leukemia.
Three of those fatalities were girls under the age of 10,
who all passed away within a year.
In 2015, six women in La Cantera came together
to rally the community,
led by a single mother named Nely Baeza,
who, due to her tenacity and charisma,
is the film's access character.
Baeza is a 28-year-old single mom and reluctant activist
who never thought she would find herself in such a position.
But after her daughter nearly bled to death,
Nely and her fellow activists demand answers
from the local government
regarding the town's water supply.
Baeza squares off against local politicians,
including the mayor and the state water commission.
Both entities do everything they can to bury the truth
after radiation is found in the water.
Nely finds herself at the middle of a controversy
that ends up tearing her town apart.
The issues in the area's water came into focus
shortly after the enactment
of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.
The filmmakers make the case
that this created a massive landgrab
in the Mexican trade corridor,
which forced farmers to grow more crops
by extracting more and more groundwater.
Rainwater that found its way to aquifers was drained,
forcing Mexico to reach further into the Earth
to an ancient fossil layer of water.
Scientists explain that this fossil layer of water
is 35,000 years old, thus the film's title.
Due to the water's age, it consists of metals,
unknown minerals, and natural radioactivity.
The Age of Water is co-directed by the sister-brother team
of Isabel and Alfredo Alcántara.
Isabel comes from the world of journalism
and has a producing background.
For the last 10 years, she has stayed busy
working at a progressive digital media company,
producing news that focuses on labor,
political, economic, and social justice issues.
Alfredo Alcántara is an Emmy-winning filmmaker
who was raised in Mexico City
and is currently based in New York.
He got his start in the business as a cinematographer
and serves as the director of photography on The Age of Water.
This is the duo's first venture into the feature film world.
In the directors' statement,
the Alcántaras say they wanted to create a booming platform
that galvanized ordinary communities
to stand up against the exploitation of their homeland.
As a result, they developed a narrative
that tells the story of Mexico's parched earth,
resilient mothers, and its broken government.
The Age of Water starts now on PBS Wisconsin,
your home for independent film.