For the second year in a row, a member of the GolfCourseHome Network is a sponsor of the Martha's Vineyard International Film Festival. This year it is www.WaterViewHome.net.
Thus, it was fitting that the first film shown was entitled, FLOW: For the Love of Water, a disturbing account of the transformation of water from a freely given gift of the earth to a commodity controlled by the few and denied to the many who are unable to pay for it.
The result of the water grab is poverty, civil unrest, displaced families and profit for the companies whose privatization of this valuable resource has created cartels similar to oil cartels. As the film's website says: Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigates what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century: The World Water Crisis.
Other films shown come from Japan, Germany, France, China, Mexico, Italy, India, New Zealand, Uganda, Laos, USA and Martha's Vineyard itself, proving that the event is truly global and local. Now in only its third year the film festival is continuing to build on its success, filling the three venues in Vineyard Haven each day. Director Richard Paradise won a governor's award for building state tourism: half the films' attendees come from off island.
