So here I am, heading to Sundance 2008 with the film I edited, Flow: For Love Of Water, by Irena Salina.   I’m so excited to get there—but it’s Day 2 of the Sundance Film Festival.  And I’m in the Cincinnati Marriott.

Why, you might ask?  All of us on that flight out of New York this morning were asking the same question.  Bright, sunny day—skies couldn’t be clearer.  And there we were with our faces pressed against the window, watching our incoming aircraft—that needed to unload before we could board for Cincinnati—sit on the runway.  By the time we left it was an hour late, just enough time for us to miss our connection in Ohio.  We saw it take off two gates down as we were deplaning. The bunch of us headed to Sundance all were on standby on the next flight out, but with so many folks going to Sundance none of us could get on the next flight.   So they rolled us over to be on standby for the 9:00 flight tonight, with the warning that it, too, was overbooked.  I, for one, took the hotel voucher and the guaranteed seat.  So I’ll be taking off at 6 am. As long as I don’t miss the premiere on Sunday night, 8:30, Holiday Village II, I’m happy.

We’re all excited about the film:  it’s been a long time coming, especially for Irena.  It started as an idea for her, five years ago, when she read an article about how the world’s water is under threat.  The article, by Canadian activists Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, went point-by-point on all the ways the supply is under siege:  Pollution, as industrialization releases more and more chemicals into the atmosphere and the gorund.  Depletion, as more and more people are using water in more and more wasteful ways.  The danger then becomes, as less and less clean, drinkable water is available to the planet, the remaining water becomes more and more of a commodity—like oil—and there are very powerful companies trying to take it over.  And profit from it.  And make sure it’s available for the world’s wealthy, poor populations be damned.

She knew she had to act.  She got a cameraman and a producer and a miniscule budget, and she headed to South Africa, where she found that large companies are trying to privatize the water there: building infrastructure and then charging poor villagers for the privilege.  She went to India, where impoverished farmers fought the wholesale theft of their water by Coca Cola.  To Bolivia, where villagers took to the streets to protest privatization of their water systems.  And to Michigan, where private bottling companies owned by Nestle are lowering the levels of lakes and streams to bottle their water.

And on and on: I’m just scratching the surface.  When I saw the footage, I knew I had to be part of this.  We just felt like this was one of the most important issues facing the planet:  you’re out of water, you’re out of luck.  More than one of our subjects states flatly that the next war will be fought over water systems.

Irena got us an Avid Express Pro system and we began logging the more than 300 hours of footage, over at Goldcrest Post in lower Manhattan, day after day.  Lots of cuts, lots of bins, lots of late nights and takeout food.  After 8 months of just me and Irena in that editing room—giving birth, as we often said, with the labors that implies–we got a little more funding, and a couple more editors to hurtle toward the deadline, we were working on three systems: an Adrenaline, my old Avid Express, and an Avid Meridian System.  Trading bins and cuts daily, between myself and Doug O’Connor, who works with Barbara Koppel, and Madeline Gavin, who helped us out so much with fresh eyes and more hands to help shape and massage our daily-changing edit.  (Congrats, by the way, to Madeleine on the success of the Business of Being Born—I keep reading about it!).  And in the final stretch, Andy Mondshein, editor of many many films including the Sixth Sense, to push us into that upper eschelon: and to Sundance!   The big hope:  to get distribution, to get the word out there.  Oh, and also, to change the world!

And I’ll get there tomorrow.  What celebrity am I most excited to meet?  Maude Barlow, who started it all with that article, and is a big part of our film.  She’s my superstar.

More from the ground in Park City when I arrive!