Water covers around 70% of the earth’s surface - it has the power to give life and the power to take it away. When water comes from a tap we take it for granted, but when it arrives in a torrent or disappears where once it was plentiful, the human impact is almost impossible to imagine.

About Water, People, and Yellow Cans is a powerful documentary portrait of three areas of the world where people’s lives are affected by the changing nature of water. In Bangladesh flooding destroys crops and homes; in Kazakhstan, the harbor city of Aralsk is now a dust bowl after the Aral sea shrinks to half its original size; in Kibera, Nairobi, Africa’s largest slum, there are only 15 official clean water points for a population of 1.4 million people.

Very much influenced by the work of documentary filmmaker Michael Glawogger (Working Man’s Death), director Udo Boa takes us on a visual portrait of lives under tremendous strain. People with incredible dignity talk about their livelihoods destroyed, their once successful lives now reduced to illegal means, the hardship required to keep their children clean and maintain their self-respect when water is such an elusive commodity.

Filled with stunning images, startling statistics, and only the minimum of dialogue to punctuate the visual tragedy in three very different parts of the world. About Water, People and Yellow Cans is a moving document of climate change, engineering folly, and corrupt government practices.



Editor’s Pitch

If you think you’ve seen the power of water to enrich or destroy, then think again. This is a beautifully crafted, quietly powerful testament to how the control - or lack of control - over water affects some of the planet’s unluckiest people. This is great filmmaking which keeps humanity centre stage and allows viewers to be drawn into the reality of these places without political hectoring or manipulative scripting. Beautifully crafted, About Water moves you without making you sad – that’s a magical combination.