trailer coming soon
Water Town follows the current and three former mayors on their quest to win back the spring water from the corporations they believe are stealing it from them. Quirky art-direction and offbeat humor set the tone for a David and Goliath battle, highlighting the absurdities of wealth inequity and challenging the viewer to consider whether water is a right or a commodity.
Once a booming company town, the decline of the timber industry has left this part of California in deep economic depression. To the townspeople, the spring water is not only their heritage, but the only resource that could generate revenue to pay for schools, roads and basic city infrastructure. And yet the City receives no share of the profit that Crystal Geyser, which is co-owned by an infamous French billionaire and a Fortune 500 Japanese pharmaceutical company, makes from selling the water overseas.
Since its founding as a mill town in 1897, the City of Weed, California, has piped pristine water from a spring on Mount Shasta directly to its homes. But the spring is on land owned by the timber company, Roseburg Forest Products, which claims the water right – and says it will no longer provide water to the town. Meanwhile Roseburg sells water to Crystal Geyser Roxane for export to Japan.
But a crew of former mayors is fighting back. They believe the water right belongs to the City, and with new-found evidence in hand, they’re raising money to bring the case to court.