Water Warriors | Michael Premo | OWFF and Inter Pares September 28

Directed and produced by Michael Premo, Water Warriors tells the successful story of a diverse community coming together to protect their most precious resource, water.

New Brunswick, Canada’s province most well known for its forestry, fishing and farming industries, was and is a province dependent on their industry to support rural communities.

However, the stability of the region’s commercial and small-scale subsistence operation came under attack when Texas-based SWN Resources arrived in 2013 to explore the province as a source for natural gas.

In response, a multicultural group of unlikely warriors–including members of the Mi’kmaq Elsipogtog First Nation, French-speaking Acadians and white, English-speaking families–set up a series of road blockades, sometimes on fire, preventing exploration. After months of resistance, their efforts not only halted drilling; they elected a new government and won an indefinite moratorium on fracking in the province.

Although only a short 22 minutes long, the film has achieved great success across North America and has stirred up conversation regarding the worth of natural gas exploitation and the consequences it has for communities and the future.

Water Warriors is being screened, alongside the short documentary The Three Sisters Community Garden, in partnership with Inter Pares and will be followed by a panel discussion with Norman Matchewan (Algonquins of Barriere Lake) and Ben Powless (Defenders of the Land, Idle No More, Canadian Youth Climate Coalition) at the 28th annual OWFF on opening night: September 28.

Also on opening night, the One World Film Festival will be co-presenting a 10th anniversary screening of the documentary Freedom Drum with Amnesty International Canada. The documentary profiles a 24-hour vigil in support of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – led by the Ottawa members of The Midnight Messenger, Amnesty International Canada’s human rights drum circle – that took place on October 12, 2006, on Victoria Island in Ottawa, on the unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Peoples. The film first screened at the 18th annual One World Film Festival on October 12, 2007.

For ticket information visit http://oneworldfilmfestival.ca/owff-tickets-and-passes/