The Georgetown Mellon Sawyer Seminar, 'Approaching the Anthropocene' will be screening Watermark (Burtynsky and Baichwal 2013) on the evening of November 3, at 8:00 pm in New South 156. The film will be followed by a reception and discussion with art historian Dr. Rina Faletti (Global Arts, UC Merced).
Watermark is a feature documentary from multiple-award winning filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal and renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky.
The film brings together diverse stories from around the globe about our relationship with water: how we are drawn to it, what we learn from it, how we use it and the consequences of that use. We see massive floating abalone farms off China’s Fujian coast and the construction site of the biggest arch dam in the world – the Xiluodu, six times the size of the Hoover. We visit the barren desert delta where the mighty Colorado River and the water-intensive leather tanneries of Dhaka.We witness how humans are drawn to water, from the U.S. Open of Surfing to the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, where millions of people gather for a sacred bath in the Ganges. We speak with scientists who drill ice cores deep into the Greenland Ice Sheet, and explore the sublime pristine watersheds of Northern British Columbia. Shot in stunning 5K ultra high-definition video and full of soaring aerial perspectives, this film shows water as a terraforming element, as well as the magnitude of our need and use.