THE DEVIL'S WATER

North American Premiere

In Bangladesh, where heat ravishes the land, local villagers drink at least twice as much water as in the United States. In the 1970s, an effort was made by aid agencies to provide potable non-surface water. UNICEF dug thousands of wells throughout the country. These wells inadvertently tapped into underground arsenic lines. In what is now considered one of the worst mass poisonings in human history, thousands of people in West Bengal and Bangladesh are suffering from arsenic poisoning from these contaminated water sources. Filmmaker Amirul Arham investigates how and why contamination occurred and documents why it persists today-as government and health organizations continue to fail to intervene.

The national tragedy is seen through the eyes of Rekha, a young contaminated woman abandoned by her husband, and two young girls who were also contaminated. Amirul explores the struggle one village must overcome to treat the disease and rid the tainted water source from their community. THE DEVIL'S WATER taps into the complex world of international aid agencies through the perspective of ill-fated aid recipients. Three years in the making, it is a striking case study of the best of intentions gone awry and the power of even the most impoverished communities to rise up and challenge the global health system that has failed them.

-Nina Gilden Seavey

Sponsored by
The French Embassy

DIRECTOR BIO
Amirul Arham is a French national from Bangladesh. His many documentaries, including A BANKER FOR THE POOR have played in festivals and on television from Morocco to Rio de Janiero. Arham is also a published author and poet.

Print Source:
Real Productions
25 Rue De St. Quentin
Paris, 75010
France
+33.1.40.35.55.00
contact@real-productions.net

6/14 at 5:30 PM

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