''Waterlife'' is a 2009

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

and

web documentary A web documentary, interactive documentary, or multimedia documentary is a documentary production that differs from the more traditional forms—video, audio, photographic—by applying a full complement of multimedia tools. The interactive multim ...

about the state of the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...

. It was directed by Kevin McMahon.

Film

McMahon began filming ''Waterlife'' in 2007. The film explores the beauty of the Great Lakes as well as their degradation due to

water pollution Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, usually as a result of human activities, so that it negatively affects its uses. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. ...

. The film looks at the water system from its headwaters in

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, accompanied by Josephine Mandamin, an

Anishinabe The Anishinaabeg (adjectival: Anishinaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawatomi ...

elder from

Thunder Bay Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its population i ...

, who walks along the Great Lakes each spring to protest deteriorating conditions. ''Waterlife'' is co-produced by Primitive Entertainment and the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

(NFB). The film received the Special Jury Prize for Canadian Feature at the 2009 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. The

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

distributor is

Dogwoof Pictures Dogwoof is a film-distribution company based in the United Kingdom. History Dogwoof Pictures Dogwoof was founded in 2003 by Andy Whittaker, and originally concentrated on foreign films, including such titles as ''Don't Move'', '' Fateless'', ...

Web documentary

The interactive version of ''Waterlife'' was created by Toronto-based web and design company Jam3 and creative directors Adrian Belina and Pablo Vio for the NFB, incorporating material from the documentary film. The conception and development of the website took approximately four months. ''Waterlife'' explores different aspects of the state of the Great Lakes through 23 individual sections, incorporating text, images and sound. It received the

Webby Award The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories includ ...

for best web documentary (individual episode).

References

External links

* (requires

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...

) * National Film Board of Canada web documentaries Great Lakes Documentary films about water and the environment Canadian environmental websites 2009 documentary films Webby Award winners Water pollution in Canada Water pollution in the United States 2009 films 2000s English-language films 2000s Canadian films {{environment-documentary-film-stub

Film

Web documentary

See also

References

External links