Think globally, watch locally at Blue Water Film Festival

The fifth annual Blue Water Film Festival featuring environmentally conscious shorts, and animated and television films about water will screen at numerous La Jolla venues March 21-24 including The Conrad, UCSD Innovation Building, La Jolla Riford Public Library, and La Jolla Recreation Center, as well as the Museum of Photography in Balboa Park.

The film fest honoring World Water Day on March 22 offers 44 films over four days comprised of 12 features and 27 short films. Celebrated every year since 1993, WWD is an annual United Nations Observance focusing on the importance of freshwater. The special day celebrates water and raises awareness of the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water. Observing the day is about taking action to tackle the global water crisis.

Blue Water Film Festival kicks off March 21 with the opening night reception and screening of Jean-Albert Lievre’s “Whale Nation,” presented by the French Consulate Julia Duhaut-Bedos at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. The festival centerpiece presentation will be presented by Austrian Consulate Michael Postl for the feature documentary film, “Orca Black White & Gold” directed by Sarah Norenberg. The festival will close with Boston Globe feature reporter David Abel’s “Inundation District” and “In The Whale.”

The Blue Water Film Festival is dedicated to profiling the planet’s precious life supply of water – the oceans, aquifers, rivers, dams, lakes, streams, and waterway systems through cinema and engagement. Known for its environmental programming, the Blue Water Film Festival works to provide opportunities for support and mentorship of the emerging voices of up-and-coming environmental filmmakers.

Greg Reitman, the founder of Blue Water Film Festival who is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and author, talked about the difficult start to the festival and its enduring significance.

“We were all set up, had $300,000 in funding and were fully operational and then COVID came and we had to do it (festival) online,” Reitman related, noting the pandemic hindered, but didn’t prevent, the festival from moving forward. “We figured it out quickly,” he said. “We were able to stream the event and were one of the first to do an online festival and an online summit, and do it in a very effective way. We were sort of setting a trend for others to follow.”

Blue Water Institute, a nonprofit, was also created in conjunction with the film festival to further a commitment to preserve the planet, driven by the Blue Water Film Festival’s environmental programs that discover, innovate, and support the next generation of international environmental filmmakers.

“Our approach has intentionally been about amplifying environmental storytelling and honoring filmmakers for their work in bringing these stories forward,” Reitman said. “It’s really important that cinema captures the images, and provides data and analysis, that can help us to make better environmental decisions about water, which is a really important part of the fabric of life.”

Blue Water Film Festival is a boutique event beloved by environmental film fans and auteurs alike. Over 80% of the films in the 2024 Blue Water Film Festival slate will have filmmakers in attendance and online participation in Q&As following the screenings.

The festival’s theme centers around the blue planet Earth. The festival’s purpose is to encourage attendees to think broadly about how climate change affects planet Earth and deeply about the universal concerns and actions needed to bring us into balance. About 50% of all film selections are non-US productions, helping to fulfill the festival mission of promoting global cross-cultural understanding through film.

What would Reitman like viewers of the Blue Water Film Festival to come away with?

“We want people to be blown away by the content, mesmerized in terms of the breadth and scope of what’s happening in the world and not to take anything for granted,” he answered. “We also hope, when they see the power of the content, that they’ll want to donate to support our nonprofit, so we can continue to do this every year and sustain the purpose of our mission. We want people to see film as a lens providing input enabling people to move the needle empowering cities, states and nations to move quicker (in preserving water). You can’t escape it. Our planet is our home: We need to take care of it.”