Dark Waters

I shot the film with an outstandingly creative team in Cincinnati and West Virginia, for the most part in the course of an icy winter. We were able to find a number of specific real locations and fit a wonderful variety of local actors into our cast. The specific time and place were fundamental in bringing to the fore a complex, sometimes contradictory American landscape in which the borderlines of economic power are clearly drawn, even when they have to come to terms with their own limits.

Only rarely does this type of film, based on real events, have a happy ending, and Dark Waters is no exception to the rule. Instead of focusing on the victory achieved, the film presents the battle as an ongoing condition, thus becoming an introductory manual for an imperfect life of awareness and desperation. In this way we all remain inside the story, which ultimately becomes our own.

What initially appears to be a contamination of the regional and national water supply becomes, slowly but surely the symbol of a global contamination, evidencing both our interconnection as inhabitants of the planet and our role as victims of ideology and the capitalist system. The magnitude of this man-made catastrophe inevitably connects us with one another in what is an infinite battle for justice and, at one and the same time, for our lives.

Dark Waters may have been made but the story of an endangered environment is anything but over. It has burning resonance with what is now happening within our political, environmental and legal scenario. We have witnessed the systematic break-up of legislation on water, air, species on the verge of extinction and, clearly, climate change. Everything is at risk today. I felt the urgent need to make Robert Bilott’s story known so that the public might speak about it and feel involved first-hand.