Oil and Water

Description

"Oil & Water" is the true story of two boys coming of age as they each confront one of the world's worst toxic disasters. Hugo and David were born on opposite ends of the oil pipeline. Hugo comes to America to fight for the survival of his Cofan tribe in the Ecuadorian Amazon, while David goes to Ecuador to launch the world's first company to certify oil as "fair trade." Their journeys lead them to explore what could be a more just future, not just for the Cofan, but for all people around the world who are born with oil beneath their feet. When Hugo Lucitante was 10 years old, his tribe made a desperate decision. Fearing extinction, they sent Hugo to be educated in the US, in hopes that he would return to lead them into a better future. A decade later, we follow Hugo as he returns to the Ecuadorian Amazon to meet his destiny, armed only with a high school diploma. David Poritz was just a sixth-grader when he learned of the oil disaster in Hugo???s homeland. With the blessing of his mother, David started a humanitarian project that led him away from his home in Amherst, Massachusetts to spend much of his youth in the Amazon. The two teenagers meet by chance during a shared canoe ride, and then again, when David offers to travel with Hugo to tour the damage cause by the 18 billion gallons of oil waste that was dumped on Hugo's ancestral lands. The area's people experience unexplainable rashes, childhood deformities and ballooning cancer rates. The film follows the boys back to the U.S. as their lives and the situation in Ecuador get more complicated. Can Hugo become the leader his tribe so desperately wants him to be? Will David clean up one of the world's dirtiest industries? Oil & Water is an intimate portrait of two young people finding their voices and trying to beat incredible odds. Eight years in the making, the film is an independent documentary funded by ITVS and MacArthur Foundation and made for broadcast on PBS.