The Weight of Water : Climate Change Documentary Film release update

My first feature length film is now screening and you can watch it for free all this week!!!

Nov 10, 2021

🎉 🎉 🎉 🎉 🎉

I know it’s been a little quiet here for a while but I’ve been rather swamped with releasing the film I’ve been working on for the past two years with Deej Phillips. And it’s finally done!! We just received the final sound and color mixed file and the post production is officially completed. And the cherry on top is that our film already got accepted at an international film festival and we have some exciting news on a TV broadcast that I’ll share early next year.

And the even more exciting news is that you can all watch the film already, during this week at least, only till November 14, 2021. View the trailer below and hope it’ll compel you to watch the full film (68 minutes).

All details below on the film and how to watch, with lots of additional commentary. Scroll down!

If you have no time or patience for backstories, register here first and click this link after, to watch the film!

Only available till November 14, 2021.

About the film:

A beautifully filmed and compellingly told documentary about the impacts of climate change in Nepal, tied together with a common theme of water.

A grieving mother. A flooded football field. A burdened woman. Three emotional stories set in Nepal show how communities are already being impacted by flooding and drought, all made worse by the injustice of climate change and increasingly extreme weather events.

Compellingly told human interest stories about the impacts of climate change in the severely underrepresented, breathtakingly beautiful, and culturally rich country of Nepal, tied together by the theme of water. — Susanna Basso, Climate Crisis Film Festival Artistic Director

Why did we decide to do this film?

Earlier in 2019, I was deep in the pits of despair over climate anxiety. It felt like carrying a heavy burden on my heart, fully knowing no amount of crying or screaming would help me get over the sadness or paralysis induced by the fear of future. After going through the long process of letting the grief run through me first, acknowledging the reality and letting go of the anger, I was ready to take action by mid 2019. Keeping in mind my skills & resources, I felt the best thing I could do was raise awareness on the topic. Since then, I have spent all my time actively reading, researching & spreading the word about climate change. So the film felt like a natural but big next step.

Deej’s story was somewhat similar too. Here’s what he had to say -

As someone who has always been fascinated with the natural world and all the incredible creatures that live on it, climate change was always something I wanted to care deeply about but I found it very easy to ignore and continue with life as if this impending crisis will somehow go away. Going through spells of veganism and many other efforts to reduce my carbon footprint, I finally realised this was far from the impact that is needed to avoid this crisis. Earlier in 2019 is when I really decided to commit to advocating positive change in the best way I could which is through documentary filmmaking. — Deej Phillips

How did we make the film?

The most important thing you need to know before reading any further is that when we decided to make the film, neither I nor Deej had ever worked on directing or producing a feature length film ever! And I had never reported on climate change as a journalist till then. *whoops*

We landed in Kathmandu in October 2019 and hit the ground running. Very luckily, we found a great third partner in Durga Prasad Upadhyay, a veteran climate change professional in Nepal. Durga was very quick in recognising potential of this project and was all in from the get go. He was crucial in connecting us to the communities on ground here and the climate experts featured in the film. We found and filmed great personal stories within a span of two months, after an unbelievable round of impromptu crowdfunding as the project got bigger than we had planned for. Then the pandemic hit and brought the second half of the filming to a halt but in the mean time Deej got to work in finding a team that could put the film together for us. And I prepared to interview and film climate experts who would explain how climate change is affecting Nepal in detail.

First addition to our team was Brandon Kahn, a brilliant editor who worked with us overtime over several months to sort out the narrative arc and then edit the film to perfection. We also got a great composer and sound designer/company( who do work for acclaimed productions like The Crown, Peaky Blinders etc) onboard. With that, our low production indie film suddenly was looking like a polished film. (When you watch the film, please do pay attention to the score and the sound mix. It’s so good!)

Now that the film was getting close to completion, the next challenge was to get a distribution deal. The previous three months have been the most stressful with the most steep learning curve ever for me! I mean, how many times in two years can a girl learn everything from scratch? I had to learn all about climate science, climate policy, climate justice, then script writing, then learning how to pitch a film in an industry that is not only extremely competitive, famously difficult to crack and oversaturated with talent?! But I’m very pleased to announce we have an international TV broadcast offer and after months of pitching and hitting several dead ends after promising beginnings, I’m quite happy with the result. More details on this next year.

Meanwhile, the cherry on top has been that our film got selected at UK’s Climate Crisis Film Festival (CCFF) 2021, and that’s where you’ll be able to watch the film till November 14, 2021. Details below.

How to watch?

The Climate Crisis Film Festival (CCFF) is the UK’s first climate action film festival.

Pioneering, aspirational, grassroots and youth-led, our diverse and eye-opening programming focuses on channeling constructive collective action and providing an intersectional analysis of climate, politics, economics and social justice. This year the CCFF are bringing you over 70 climate film screenings and events that will bring transport you to the frontlines of the climate crisis.

I’m thrilled to inform you that our film has been recognised as an Official Selection at Climate Crisis Film Festival UK (CCFF2021) and we are featured right on the homepage too. (Saw the award leaves on the film poster?! Such a thrill! :D) CCFF2021 went live on 1st November at 4pm GMT with an opening address by iconic environmentalists Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, Bill McKibben and Lily Cole.

Our film is currently screening virtually, free for anyone to view till November 14th as part of the film festival, viewing link in bio and comments. Register and please watch the film before November 14th!

Watch “The Weight of Water” here - https://www.climatecrisisff.co.uk/watch/the-weight-of-water-climate-crisis-in-nepal

You’ll have to first register and then follow the link above to view the film.

Access: Free, Online, Worldwide

Duration: November 1-14, 2021 only. After that, the films won’t be accessible.

Watch our film and do check out all the other stunning films on climate change as well. After you have watched the film, feel free to comment here or write a review or share with your network. I’d love to know what you thought of my directorial debut! :)

How to contribute to my climate change communication work?

Spending two years on a project that will not make any profit wasn’t my original plan at all but we cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. I’m hoping this first feature will lead to bigger and better things in future while I get back to paying work. Meanwhile, if you enjoyed the film or want to support my work on raising awareness on climate change further, here are two things you could do -

If you have an Indian card/account, then making a one time payment of any amount to contribute to my Climate Crisis Reporting Fund would be the best option given all the new RBI guideline hassles.
One time contribution of any Amount
If you have an International card/account, becoming an annual or founding member of Climate Matters newsletter through Stripe payment gateway is the best option as Instamojo doesn’t accept international payments.
Become Annual or Founding Member

Thanks for supporting my work!

Extra backstory for those who are curious:

To those of you who are new to my work and newsletter, here’s a quick primer on how I randomly decided to make a film despite never having dreamt of being a director or making even a small video, ever.

In February 2019, I published my first ever article on climate change and Deej got in touch asking if I’d be interested in collaborating on making few videos on climate change. I loved his previous video on Kerala fisherman and thought why not, I was tired of working alone as an independent journalist anyway by then. And so we decided to meet in Kathmandu for the first time ever in September 2019 to film in Nepal. Thankfully, our skills were complementary and our intentions and ideas on climate crisis matched, not without a bit of friction early on though ;) . And just like that we had a film on our hands and the best possible team came together in the days that followed. But what was supposed to be a 6-month video project turned into a 2 year long feature length documentary film project. What was supposed to be a self-funded low-key passion passion project turned into a crowdfunded film project with excellent production quality. The pandemic hit meanwhile and we had to learn the ropes as producers from scratch. There were countless moments where the whole idea seemed crazy but somehow we’ve made it to the end with, if I may call it so myself, an absolutely stunning film!

You can read Deej’s version here -

deejfilms

A post shared by Deej Phillips (@deejfilms)

And that’s it for now.

Phew, what a brilliant, challenging and ultimately satisfying journey this has been.

thanks for being a part of it! :))

Climate Matters