Film phase:Completed
SYNOPSIS
This punk rock fairytale doubles as a portrait of Shoog McDaniel — a fat, queer, and disabled photographer working in and around northern Florida’s vast network of freshwater springs, the state’s source of precious drinking water. For over a decade, Shoog’s photographs have transformed the way fat people view themselves and how a fat phobic society views fat bodies. Bringing Shoog’s photography to life, the film immerses audiences in a world of fat beauty and liberation, one in which marginalized bodies — including bodies of water — are sacred.
How to Carry Water was supported through our QUEER FUTURES program.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Sasha Wortzel (she/they) uses video, sculpture, installation, and sound to explore how this country’s past and present are inextricably linked through resonant spaces and their hauntings. Wortzel’s films have screened at the MOMA DocFortnight, True/False, BAMcinemaFest, Wexner Center for the Arts, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Berlinale, among others. Wortzel’s film This Is An Address (2020) is distributed by Field of Vision. Happy Birthday Marsha! (2018; co-director Tourmaline) won special mention at Outfest and is distributed by Frameline.
ABOUT THE PRODUCERS
Colleen Cassingham (she/her) is a Producer at Multitude Films focused on politically committed artful nonfiction. Most recently, she produced the IDA Awards-nominated shorts collection QUEER FUTURES (CPH:DOX 2023), Executive Produced by J Wortham. Her past credits include Co-Producer on It’s Only Life After All (Sundance 2023), and Associate Producer on Pray Away (Tribeca 2020), Through Our Eyes: Apart (Provincetown 2020), Call Center Blues (SXSW 2020), Always In Season (Sundance 2019), The Feeling Of Being Watched (Tribeca 2018), and Love The Sinner (Tribeca 2017) which were distributed by Netflix, Topic, HBOMax, POV, and Independent Lens. Colleen’s directorial debut short From Damascus To Chicago was broadcast on POV in 2017 and was an Editor’s Pick at The Atlantic. She is a 2023-2024 Sundance Producing Fellow, selected for her role producing Reid Davenport’s second feature doc Life After. She is also a 2023-2024 Impact Partners Producing Fellow, and was a VC Sony 2021 Mentor at The Video Consortium, a 2019 Points North Fellow, and a 2017–2018 UnionDocs Collaborative Studio fellow. Outside of Multitude Films, she is independently producing Casey Carter’s Sundance-supported debut feature, To Use A Mountain.
Jess Devaney (they/she) is an Emmy-winning producer and Founder & President of Multitude Films. Their latest films include How We Get Free (HBO); the Indigo Girls documentary It’s Only Life After All (Sundance 2023); Emmy-nominated Lowndes County And The Road To Black Power (Peacock); Emmy-nominated Netflix Original Pray Away; Oscar-shortlisted Call Center Blues (Topic Studios); and Apart, the Emmy-winning episode of the series Through Our Eyes (HBO Max). Jess created the Ford Foundation-supported QUEER FUTURES series and produced Sundance Award-winning and IDA-nominated Always In Season (Independent Lens) as well as The Feeling Of Being Watched (POV), dubbed “a real-world conspiracy thriller” by Variety. Additional credits include Critics’ Choice-nominated Speed Sisters and Milisuthando, among others. Her films have been programmed at top festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, BlackStar, and Telluride. Jess founded QueerDoc and was a Sundance Institute Documentary Edit and Story Lab fellow, Women at Sundance fellow, and Sundance Institute Creative Producing Lab advisor. They have been recognized with the Cinereach Producers Award, DOC NYC and Topic Studios’ inaugural 40 Under 40 Award, Doc10’s inaugural Vanguard Award, and the 2023 Sundance Institute Amazon Studios Nonfiction Producers Award.