The Cherokee Word for Water: Feature Film Project

[image is from here]

I believe a core issue for Women's Liberation, as well as for ending genocide, is this: water, clean water, available potable water. Water than you don't have to walk miles or many kilometers to get, and then carry back: women being the people who do this, globally.

Water to drink, to stay alive. Water to rinse out wounds to help prevent infection and death. Water to cool the feverish body. Water to wash the stink of the rapist off your body. Water to take down pills necessary to keep the ravages of HIV/AIDS, and many other diseases and illnesses at bay. Water to wash the blood off of you after being battered again by the man who says he loves you. Water to wash the semen off your face, after having your human rights violated, again, inside the world of industrial-strength racist, sexxxist pornography, trafficking, and sexual slavery.

Women in poverty, women without water, are vulnerable to all manner of other abuses. Please remember that. If you don't have water for your children, they are vulnerable too, to being pimped and trafficked and sold into slavery. Most children are girls, remember. Gynocides, not women's lives, thrive on lack of basic resources for women and girls. Land, water, food, shelter, health care, compassionate friends, healthy community, physical and spiritual well-being.

Water is a radical profeminist issue. And those of us with class and region privileges, may never ever think of water this way. But if you watch what follows, and pay attention to what poor women of color around the world do, to survive and help others in their communities survive, you will understand.

What follows next is from *here*.

A feature-length motion picture, The Cherokee Word for Water, is about a Cherokee community that uses traditional Native values of reciprocity and interdependence to rebuild their community. Set in the early 1980s, the screenplay was inspired by the Bell Waterline Project which was the subject of national media coverage. This positive, uplifting film focuses on the cultural assets of Native people and seeks to help reshape the public perception of Native people. The project is committed to training and employing Native people for jobs from filming to construction.

Mankiller Project, LLC, being supported by the Native-run nonprofit One Fire Development Corporation, will produce and distribute The Cherokee Word for Water and all related educational materials. The leadership team includes Charlie Soap, Wilma Mankiller's husband who has worked in Indian Country for all of his life. The experienced creative team includes Paul Heller, producer of Academy Award Wining My Left Foot, to create a positive contemporary Native American story with universal appeal.

Introduction Video: [see here]

Background Video: [see here]

To learn more contact outreach@cw4w.com or visit: http://www.cw4w.com.