Film
Communicates the Cause
There
was big crowd at award winning and award-nominated, The Fight For Water Film,
at UC Merced last night, 8/22/13.
The
Fight For Water Film documents the struggle of two farmers, and thousands of
farm workers on the Westside, Fresno County, in 2009 when there was only a 10
percent water allocation.
Filmmaker/Director
Juan Carlos
Oseguera focuses on the 50-mile historic water march in his film, the only
film that documents this journey that brought more than 1,000 farmers and farm
workers from all over the state.
The
film also records the many food lines that were required in towns such as
Firebaugh, Mendota, San Joaquin and Huron. Farmworkers, though humiliated, were
forced to resort to these food lines due to the high unemployment that reached
in excess of 40 percent as a consequence of the non-irrigated fields.
Ironically,
though The Fight For Water film documents this event in 2009 and 2010, nothing
has changed. In fact, farmers in the Westside Federal Water Districts are
currently facing what could be an even worse year in
2014. The Bureau of Reclamation has warned that if there is not significantly
more than average rain and snowfall this winter, there could be an
unprecedented zero
allocation.
No
water allocation may force many farmers out of business and cause massive
unemployment in the Westside communities already suffering from severely
reduced water allocations. This season, farmers received only 20 percent of
what they needed and paid for.
Oseguera
said, “I have found that Californians outside of the Central Valley, and
Americans out of state, are unaware of the plight of farmers and farmworkers
here. So, we need to expand distribution of the film to educate everybody.”
“There
is growing interest from film distributors to advance the film to wider
audiences,” said Oseguera. “A good way to tell the distributors that the film
needs to be seen by others outside of California is to like the Fight
For Water Facebook page,” he noted.
Labels: bureau of reclamation, Firebaugh, Huron Food Bank, Juan Carlos Oseguera, Menfota, San Joaquin, The Fight For Water Film, water march, Westside