Flow Interrupted: A Day of Panels, Film & Action
A World Water Film Festival Event as part of Chicago Water Week
Hosted by Emmanuel Pratt at the visionary Sweet Water Foundation, a series of short films, a feature, and speakers, taking hope to action.
Event Location:
Civic Arts Church - Sweet Water Foundation
5810 South Lafayette Avenue
Chicago, IL 60621
At a time when the world feels overwhelmed by overlapping crises, where do we find the hope to keep fighting? We find it in the people living in the solutions. Join us on Monday, May 4, for "Go with the Flow: Where the Water Grows," an immersive, free Chicago Water Week event produced by the World Water Film Festival hosted by Emmanuel Pratt at the visionary Sweet Water Foundation.
This is not another film screening and panel discussion about the problems of water contamination - it is a celebration of the communities, advocates, and storytellers who are forcing change and healing the earth and communities.
EVENT AGENDA
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Welcome, Check-Ins & Nibbles
Guests arrive, check in, and enjoy light refreshments while taking time to walk the public spaces of the Sweet Water Foundation campus, grounding themselves in the space before the program begins.
11:00 AM - 01:00 PM Agriculture & Plant-Based Solutions: From Crisis to Regeneration
Join us for a two-hour film screening and discussion exploring the hidden impacts of industrial farming on water supplies. We pivot from the crisis of contaminated groundwater to the hope of regeneration—highlighting indigenous farming, urban ecology, and "sponge cities" that restore water quality and build climate resilience. Special Guest: Meet Mohamed Salem Mohamed Ali, 2024 honoree of The World Around Young Climate Prize. Traveling from the Smara refugee camp in Algeria, Mohamed shares the extraordinary story of his water-recycling desert garden, proving that true climate innovation emerges from communities forced by necessity to find a way.
Featured Short Films:
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In Embu County, Kenya, declining rainfall and soil degradation have pushed many smallholder farmers to the brink. This short documentary tells the story of a transformative regenerative agriculture initiative, where local farmers, scientists, and private sector partners collaborate to restore soil health, strengthen resilience, and secure food for the future.
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In Algeria's Smara refugee camp, 23-year-old Mohamed Salem Mohamed Ali cultivates resilience through an experimental farm designed to foster self-sufficiency in one of the world's most inhospitable environments, pioneering methods like sandponics and hydroponics.
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An investigative documentary exposing nitrate and bacterial contamination of private drinking wells across rural Wisconsin. Families, farmers, and small business owners grapple with the life-threatening consequences of water contamination traced to industrial agriculture.
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Sweetwater Foundation founder, and mentor to Mohamed will speak about living in the solutions bring new life and action in their communities. Alongside them is Nels Lindquist, Visual Storytelling Manager from the Wisconsin Conservation Voters on how film engages voters to protect Wisconsin's environment.
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Led by the organization AFREAU, this project promotes sustainable management of the Niger River in Mali by leveraging the local knowledge of riverside communities and citizen science to collect water quality data and experiment with moringa-based water treatment.
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From Water New Zealand: Showcases how local Māori iwi, landowners, and the Auckland Council are working together to restore the Hōteo River catchment using a unique integration of western science and mātauranga Māori (Māori worldview).
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Dayana Blanco Quiroga and her Uru Uru Team adapt ancestral Aymara ecological knowledge to restore a severely polluted Bolivian Andean lake, harnessing the absorptive abilities of native totora reeds to reduce contamination and bring back the flamingos.
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A curated clip from the feature documentary Our Blue World, focusing specifically on how innovative "sponge cities" are redesigning urban environments to work with water rather than against it.
01:00 PM - 02:00 PM The Common | Wealth Campus Tour
Step outside the screening room to experience regenerative neighborhood development in action. Emmanuel Pratt and the Sweet Water Foundation team will lead attendees on a guided tour of The Common|Wealth, a bio-dynamic campus spanning six city blocks that has transformed vacant lots into a thriving urban ecology center.
PFAS STORYTELLING AND PANEL: 2PM TO 4PM
02:00 PM - 04:00 PM Storytelling of a Global Environmental PFAS Crisis: "How to Poison a Planet"
The day concludes with a deep dive into one of the greatest environmental disasters of our time: PFAS "forever chemicals" contaminating drinking water worldwide. This segment showcases four powerful forms of storytelling that drive awareness and demand accountability. An animated explainer (Groundwater Explained: PFAS) maps the invisible path of forever chemicals into our bodies. An experimental 16mm art film (Good Neighbors Care) transforms DuPont's pollution of North Carolina's Cape Fear River into a visceral, haunting meditation. A journalistic documentary (Stella, Wisconsin) puts a human face on one of the nation's most contaminated communities. And the award-winning feature How to Poison a Planet, featuring Mark Ruffalo, follows the legal battle against 3M.
Featured Films:
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"Water" is a meditation, a contemplation, and an opportunity to revere water as a source of life, a reminder that everything from childbirth to tech booms is made possible by it. The film emerges from a long-held fixation with the inseparable realities of our planet and the brief time we have to experience it. Drawing on nearly a decade's worth of footage and sound bites gathered from years of wandering, the filmmaker found that much of what the film needed already existed, waiting to be brought together. That act of assembly became a channel for responding to reversals, rollbacks, and funding cuts, ultimately shaping something that feels less like a protest and more like a prayer.
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An animated explainer short from IGRAC detailing how forever chemicals enter our environment, their harrowing health effects, and the invisible path to our drinking water.
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An experimental 16mm film exploring how DuPont and Chemours illegally dumped forever chemicals into North Carolina's Cape Fear River. Corporate promises of pure water dissolve as rivers and bodies merge in a meditation on existing in an imperfect environment.
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Tucked among the woods of northern Wisconsin, the Town of Stella is home to about 700 people, and some of the highest levels of PFAS groundwater contamination in the country.
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Featuring actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, this award-winning documentary follows the powerhouse US legal team preparing to go to trial against 3M, uncovering decades of contamination by US chemical conglomerates.
Panel Guests:
Michael & Nora Strande — Advocates behind Minnesota's landmark "Amara's Law"
Kate E. Hinshaw — Filmmaker & cinematographer; director of Good Neighbors Care
Nels Lindquist — Filmmaker, Wisconsin Conservation Voters
To learn more about Chicago Water Week and other amazing events click here: https://currentwater.org/chicago-water-week/