Villanova University filmmakers focus on water crisis in Tanzania in new documentary
Former Eagles star Chris Long helped provide support for the student filmmakers when they were in Africa.
Villanova University assistant professor Hezekiah Lewis was in Tanzania last summer, working out the logistics for an upcoming trip for a documentary film class, when he saw something that nearly brought him to his knees.
“These women and kids were digging water out of the ground,” said Lewis. “In 2019, this is still happening in the world.”
That scene inspired the students in his class to focus on the global water crisis and highlight the fact that 26 million Tanzanians do not have access to clean drinking water.
In October, the nearly two dozen aspiring filmmakers spent two and a half weeks in rural Tanzania as they gathered all the footage and sound they needed for the project and an additional short multimedia presentation that chronicled their efforts.
From the Ground Up, from Villanova student production company Glass Rose Films, is the latest effort to come out of the university’s Social Justice Documentary Program.
The film premiered April 23 and is available to rent. The official screening is planned for September at the university’s new Performing Arts Center.
But rather than doing interviews with officials and water experts, the Villanova students chose to show — not tell — the story of the villagers of Malolo in the semiarid region of Singida.
“When I wake up, the first thing is water,” said Adija, a 60-plus-year-old woman, a central character who opens the film. As she talked, she brushed the dirt floor of her mud brick home and used brownish water from a pitcher to wash up.
The film followed her miles-long trek with two five-gallon buckets across a parched landscape to the only source of available water; a fly-infested pit dug into the ground. Villagers scooped the off-color water with handheld plastic dishes into the water buckets. They will use it to wash, cook, and drink.
“They took a risk that I never imagined,” said Lewis, 43, a professor in the Department of Communications and executive producer of the project. The student directors’ vision for the film left no margin for error and showed an advance level of film making that is not easy to pull off. “I am really impressed by what they put together.”
The film was directed by two seniors, Trent Zulkiewicz and Will Brenninkmeyer.
For Brenninkmeyer, 22, a finance major from St. Augustine, Fla., the class helped him discover a creative side he hopes will translate into a career in cinematography.
“I came to a much stronger realization that storytelling was a passion in my life,” he said.
“The greatest challenge was getting people on board with one vision,” said Zulkiewicz, 22, a communications major from Belchertown, Mass.
The trip was not an easy experience for the students, who grew up in a fast-paced society where priorities are different and social mobility and clean water are a given.
“It has been a humbling experience to know that people are not like me — and that is a really good thing,” said Zulkiewicz.
The students spent the rest of the year in the production phase, editing their footage and adding sound and music. In addition, they hope to raise $90,000 to fund two wells for the villages they visited in the central part of Tanzania.
The students partnered with the Chris Long Foundation and its Waterboys initiative, which brings clean water to communities in need. The group provided in-country support for the students, said Nicole Woodie, the foundation’s executive director.
“They did a really wonderful job, truly capturing what life is like for this one woman in Tanzania,” she said.
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Long, a former Philadelphia Eagle, visited the country in 2013 to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak, along with James Hall of the Los Angeles Rams. Afterward, Long decided to help the country that captured his heart. Waterboys now includes more than 40 players from the National Football League and National Basketball Association. They have raised about $5 million, which has funded 88 projects that provide clean water to 375,000 people. Their goal is to reach 1 million people.
The group is working on projects in Kenya, and plans are in the works to expand to two or three other East African countries, where they’ll help set up water councils and train villagers to maintain the wells.
“The community is responsible for maintenance going forward — that’s what makes it sustainable,” Woodie said.
The 15-minute student documentary captures the beauty of the region and the spirit of the villagers.
Children kick around a makeshift soccer ball, chickens dart to and fro, and the women, dressed in colorful print shawls and skirts, dance with joy.
“I love my country, because we live peacefully," Adija said.