Canadian filmmaker Michael Zelniker, who will receive the Taormina Film Festival‘s Special Sustainability Award on Thursday evening, is on a mission to try and heal the damages humanity is inflicting on planet Earth.
Zelniker, who previously helmed the acclaimed 2022 deforestation docuseries “The Issue With Tissue — a Boreal Love Story” — which will soon be playing in a new cut at London’s upcoming Raindance Film Festival — traveled to 21 countries to make eight-part docuseries “The Struggle for Mother Water.” The series, which premiered at the Berlinale Series Market in February, delves into the frontlines of the water crisis through the prism of how women are leading the fight to protect and defend water.
A former actor who appeared in films such as Canadian docudrama “The Terry Fox Story,” Clint Eastwood’s “Bird” and David Cronenberg’s “Naked Lunch,” Zelniker more recently pivoted toward environmental storytelling because, “There is something really powerful about visiting communities [impacted by ecological disasters] where the people’s voices have for too long been unheard,” he says.
Below, Zelniker speaks to Variety about the journey of “The Struggle for Mother Water” and the impact the series is starting to make.
