The Global Water Crisis: Privatization and Neocolonialism in Film

This piece reviews four recent films — three documentaries and a feature film — that focus on issues of water privatization. Western governments and the World Bank have pressed water privatization on nations in the developing world, often to the detriment of residents. Companies have provided poor service at high prices and have created social conflict in communities between those whose do and do not have access to clean water. The films focus heavily on resistance to the water companies, from people illegally tapping into water mains to the 2000 resistance movement in Cochabamba, Bolivia, that forced the government to cancel a privatization contract.