Water Stories
A collaboration with
Brave Blue World Foundation and the World Water Film Festival that empowers right relation with water.
This project seeks to build your understanding of water as relationship through eight short documentary-style Water Stories from communities around the world. It guides you from observation to creation, as you trace how water moves through place and begin to document your own relationship to water.
What are Water Stories?
Water Stories begins from a simple but often overlooked truth: relationship requires introduction. To come into right relation with water, we must first know it—not as an abstract resource, but as a living system we are already part of. Water moves through our bodies, our communities, and the landscapes we inhabit, yet many of us do not know where it comes from, where it goes, or how it is held in the systems around us. Covering over 70% of the Earth’s surface, water shapes climate, ecosystems, and cultural life, but in many highly developed contexts it has been rendered invisible—delivered through pipes, managed through infrastructure, and separated from the larger cycles it sustains. Water Stories is an invitation to reintroduce ourselves. Through these narratives, we begin to build kinship with the waters we encounter daily—tracing their origins, understanding their movement, and recognizing the ecological and cultural systems they support. In doing so, we shift from passive consumption to active relationship, opening space for reciprocity, responsibility, and learning.
Who are Water Stories partners?
Water Stories is developed in collaboration with the Brave Blue World Foundation and the World Water Film Festival — organizations using film, storytelling, and public engagement to expand how societies understand water and ecological futures. Through these partnerships, Water Stories features eight voices drawn from a global network of filmmakers, scientists, innovators, artists, and community leaders, each offering a distinct perspective on how water is understood, protected, and reimagined across contexts. The project also includes a collaborative call for students and participants to submit short films documenting their own relationships with water, with selected works featured through World Water Film Festival screening events. Together, these collaborations expand the narrative of water beyond crisis — toward relationship, reciprocity, connection, and the reweaving of human and ecological futures.
Documenting
Living Water Stories
As you watch the following Water Stories from around the world, begin to notice how people relate to water in different places. Pay attention to what you see—and what might be hidden.
In this project, you will create a short video about water in your own community. Start by observing what is around you. Water might be visible, like rain, rivers, or lakes, or it might be hidden in pipes and systems. Both matter.
As you explore, ask simple questions: Where does your water come from? How does it reach you? Where does it go after you use it?
Using video, document what you discover. You might focus on a nearby water source, your daily water use, or the systems that move water through your community.
This project is not about having the right answer. It’s about noticing, exploring, and sharing what you learn.
For step-by-step instructions, see section below stories.
Water Stories
Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Lima, Peru
Wuhon, China
Mississippi, USA
Ruziba, Burundi
Aotearoa, New Zealand
Quebec, Canada
Bundorragha, Ireland
Water Stories
When you look closely at the water in your own life, what story does it tell—and how can you share that story through film?
01
FIND YOUR WATER STORY
Begin by choosing a way to explore water in your everyday life. This might be: • A river, lake, ocean, or stream near you • The water that comes into your home • Rain, flooding, drought, or seasonal change • A place where water is missing, hidden, or difficult to access • A story your family or community holds about water You do not need to start with a strong connection. You may discover that your relationship to water feels distant or unclear. That is part of the story. Start by asking: • Where does my water come from? • Where does it go after I use it? • Who or what depends on this water? • What don’t I know about it? Pay attention to both what is visible and what is hidden. Your project begins with noticing.
02
OBSERVE & DOCUMENT
Once you’ve chosen your focus, begin documenting what you see and learn. You might: • Film a body of water over time • Record the movement of water through your neighborhood or home • Interview someone in your community • Capture sounds, textures, reflections, or changes • Follow water infrastructure—pipes, drains, reservoirs, treatment systems You can also research: • Local history of water in your area • Environmental challenges or changes • Cultural or community relationships to water As you document, ask: • What patterns do I notice? • What surprised me? • What feels connected? What feels disconnected? You are not trying to “solve” anything. You are learning how to see and listen.
03
SHAPE YOUR STORY
Now begin turning what you’ve gathered into a story.
Your documentary might explore:
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A connection to water
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A lack of connection to water
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A question you are still trying to understand
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A hidden system most people don’t see
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A relationship between water and community, culture, or environment
Think about:
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What do I want people to notice?
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What question am I asking through this film?
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What feeling or perspective do I want to share?
There is no single way to tell your story. Your voice, your perspective, and your curiosity are what matter most.
04
CREATE YOUR FILM
Using your footage, create a short documentary that shares your water story.
Your film can include:
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Video footage
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Voiceover or narration
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Interviews
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Text on screen
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Sound recordings or music
It can be simple or complex—but it should be intentional.
As you finalize your film, reflect:
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What did I learn about water?
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What did I learn about my community?
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What did I learn about my own relationship to water?
This is not just a film—it is an introduction. A way of beginning a relationship.
05
SHARE & CONTRIBUTE
Your documentary becomes part of a larger collection of Water Stories from around the world.
By sharing your film, you are contributing to a global understanding of how people relate to water—across geographies, cultures, and lived experiences.
Together, these stories begin to reveal:
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Patterns of connection and disconnection
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Systems that shape how water is accessed and understood
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New ways of seeing water as a living system, not just a resource
Your story matters because it adds to a collective reimagining of our relationship to water.
What changes when you begin to notice water—not as something you use, but something you are in relationship with?
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The Living Earth Curriculum is created by Julia Watson LLC and Melissa Hunter Gurney of The Omni Institute, based on the book ‘Lo-TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism’ by Julia Watson and The Omni Institute’s educational theory by Melissa Hunter Gurney.
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