Twelve years in the making, Water for Life features three Latin American community leaders working to protect their water and ancestral territory from multinational corporations and corrupt governments that threaten the environmental, cultural and economic survival of their communities. Narrated by Diego Luna, Water For Life will have its Orlando premiere at the Florida Film Festival on Sunday April 14, and will screen again during the festival on Friday, April 18. In this interview with producer and director Will Parrinello, he discusses how he chose these three leaders to feature in the film, the process of making this film, and his hopes for what the movie can accomplish in terms of spreading awareness of these environmental battles and the people caught up in these fights.

Chris Crespo: What was the process of choosing these three people as your main subjects to tackle this issue of water use and land rights throughout Latin America? Did you initially want to make a documentary about this problem, or did you find out about the individuals first and then learned about their cause?

Will Parrinello: As independent documentary filmmakers, director of photography Vicente Franco and I have been making short documentary profiles of Goldman Environmental Prize recipients throughout Latin America since 2009. Each year the Prize, often referred to as the Nobel Prize of the environmental world, recognizes six grassroots environmental defenders from around the world who have achieved a seemingly unachievable goal. I wanted to make this film because I found these stories to be incredibly inspiring. At a time when we face numerous environmental challenges, many which seem insurmountable, here are stories of individuals who are courageously standing up, speaking truth to power and creating positive change in the world! Continue Reading …