WASHINGTON - March 20 - Food & Water Watch, a national consumer advocacy group, today sponsored a screening of Blue Gold: World Water Wars at the Environmental Film Festival in Washington, D.C.  The new award-winning documentary film exposes how corporate giants, private investors and corrupt governments are vying for control of the world's depleting fresh water supply. Food & Water Watch Board Chair Maude Barlow and Executive Director Wenonah Hauter both appear in the film to denounce corporate water privatization and offer solutions for addressing world water shortages.

Blue Gold illustrates the ways in which pollution, diversion, over-pumping and waste are exhausting the world's limited fresh water supply and how agriculture, industry and population growth are causing an increased demand for fresh water sources, setting the stage for a new global conflict.  The film also puts a spotlight on the escalating worldwide trend towards water privatization and the ways in which corporations, corrupt governments and Wall Street investors are using water for economic and political gain.

"Blue Gold is not only a film about the consequences of world water shortages," said Hauter. "It is an inspiring call-to-arms that starkly illustrates what happens when this vital natural resource ends up in the control of greedy profiteers."

Following the screening, Hauter and Sam Bozzo, director of Blue Gold, talked to the audience about the film and the negative effects of water privatization. They were joined by cast member Noah Conttrell, a Michigan third grader who successfully protested and banned Ice Mountain bottled water from his elementary school.

"When deciding whether or not to make this film, I ultimately realized that we need to grant the water crisis the same attention we do to global warming as both issues are coalescing to threaten the future of the planet and its residents," said Bozzo. "Our seemingly sole focus on global warming may be very short-sighted, as ultimately global warming is an issue of ‘how' we live, whereas the water crisis is an issue of ‘if' we live."

The screening of Blue Gold took place on Sunday, March 22 at 7:30 p.m. at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C.