Dear opponents of privatization
and those interested in conserving our vital resource water!
The movie Water Makes Money has made history. One and a half years after the highly successful premiere in 150 European cities, the publicity manager of Veolia Germany, Matthias Kolbeck, makes the following statement:
Unfortunately, Veolia's lawsuit against the film is not directed against the German filmmakers as well. After the German public authorities refused a French letters rogatory, the French parent company prompted the German Veolia subsidiary, to file a lawsuit against Leslie Franke and Herdolor Lorenz according to German law. Veolia Germany however refused this request after due consideration, with the following reason: Water Makes Money and the French lawsuit did cause already excessive damage to the multinational, and a German lawsuit would do nothing but increase the damage.
Isn't this a wonderful compliment? The powerful multinational did not abstain voluntarily from filing a lawsuit in Germany. It seems that fear from the big public has disabused Veolia! To this date, almost 1,5 million people have seen the film. This public power is also a big compliment to the many hundred dedicated people, active groups and citizens' initiatives, which fight against the private interest of the water multinationals, and made Water Makes Money their tool. This is clearly a small victory of the civil society.
The drawback: The claim is still pending against Jean-Luc Touly and the French film distributor, who certainly has to take NO responsibility whatsoever for the film. On one side, it is all over town: Veolia might not dare to damage Sarcozy, who has tight connections to the multinational, with an unpopular lawsuit just before the elections. But we and all of you: we need to remain vigilant, and if it should come to the criminal proceeding, we need to prepare the public platform which also protects our French friends from judicial arbitrariness. The facts that were shown in the film are not contested. However, they should not be referred to as "corruption".Since Water Makes Money has started in 2008 to throw light on the lucrative exploitation of the vital resource water through public private partnership, the share price of Veolia has fallen to 13,28% (from 64,55 to 8,57) and the multinational is experiencing a severe crisis!
It is certainly not only due to the film. But let's just look at Italy, for example. In the course of the preparation of the national referendum against the privatization of the water supply, an Italian version of the film was shown all over the country several hundred times. This map only shows the licensed showings. According to our Italian colleges, there were ten times more non-licensed showings than licensed ones. So far, there has never been a successful national referendum in Italy, since at least 50% of the citizens that are eligible to vote have to vote "yes" - and this in the presence of the bone-crushing media power of Berlusconi! The referendum was successful - and in Italy, many referred to it as to a "cultural revolution". Now Veolia Aqua has to withdraw from Italy completely! What a defeat for the successful multinational. Meanwhile, due to share-holders' pressure, the company is forced to withdraw from 40 out of 77 countries where they were present until now.
In Germany, Veolia remains present. However, the Suez/Eurawasser group is withdrawing from Germany. All of a sudden, Suez sold the water- and waste-water supply in Rostock, Schwerin, Goslar, Halle, Leuna, Salle-Unstrut and Rheingau to the German multinational Remondis. The mayors' ears will be burning, since Suez and Veolia have been ranting about sustainability and strong and reliable partners. And this so-called "strong partner" has suddenly disappeared over night, the promise forgotten, and the mayors have no say in who will be providing the water service for their citizens, in the best case they will be informed after the fact. A didactic play of reliability that Suez is providing in Germany and Veolia in 40 countries of the world!
No wonder! The idea of re-municipalisation of the water supply is gaining momentum everywhere, and Water Makes Money is providing support everywhere: While the film still shows André Santini, central figure of structural corruption of Ile-de France, as head of the water collecting area of Seine-Normandie, the powers have now shifted considerably. Anne le Strat, the protagonist of municipal water, has won the election as chairwoman. Santini though filed a suit against this decision – at least for the time being successfully. Or Berlin. Here again, the film contributed through numerous showings to a successful referendum, demanding the exposure of the secret contracts relating to the privatization of the water supply of Berlin. Despite the fact that all parties except for parts of the Green party were against the referendum!
Meanwhile, Water Makes Money exists in six language versions (French, German, English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese). Still now, there is at least one showing somewhere in the world every week.
And all those people that helped so that Water Makes Money became a reality, that contributed to realizing the film and disseminate it, you all should be proud! Respect!
Finally, we would like to draw your attention to important actions of the PPP-opponents, which we support:
In mid-March, the world's biggest Public-Private-Partnership propaganda show and lobbying event for the subject water is held in Marseille – the world water forum. At the same time, the privatization opponents from all over the world are meeting from March 14 to 17 in the framework of the Alternative World Water Worum FAME. www.fame2012.org. This will be a place of information, networking and discussion of common property-oriented solutions with respect to a just and fair distribution of resources. http://www.fame2012.org/en/join-us/donate/
And finally some information with respect to us, Kernfilm, Leslie Franke and Herdolor Lorenz.
We have established an online shop, which simplifies the distribution of film copies considerably. There, you can also find other films that we produced in the past few years. http://shop.kernfilm.de/
