Documentary filmmaking exposes California’s water crisis, and teaches students the importance of asking hard-hitting questions
Associate Professor Theirry Jutel, an executive producer of Pistachio Wars, shares his experience working on the film, and the significance of teaching documentary filmmaking.
Pistachio Wars is a feature-length documentary film that unveils the controversial water practices of California's billion-dollar snack industry. The film follows journalist Yasha Levine as he uncovers the intricate, and often alarming, connections between water rights, agriculture, foreign policy, and big business in the Golden State. Until economic sanctions against Iran, pistachios were grown and exported from there. At the heart of this revelation is the Resnick family, whose control over the state's water supply has far-reaching consequences for both the environment and local communities.
“The film has taken seven years to produce,” Thierry says. “That’s often the case with documentaries, but it means that we uncover a lot of information about the control of fresh water.” As an executive producer, Thierry’s role has been to provide advice to the film crew in California throughout the making of the film.
“Pistachio Wars tells us about the privatisation of water, climate change, and the extraordinary influence billionaires can have on public life,” Thierry explains.
“Many people might be thinking ‘why would New Zealander’s care about this?’, but the truth is that they should,” Thierry says. “When we go to the supermarkets we see bulk nuts and seeds, but truthfully we don’t know where they’ve come through, or what environmental measures were taken to produce them.”
The film screened during the DocEdge festival where it received a special mention and a best emerging director award from the jury. It’s available to stream for a short time before it screens in festivals all over the world.
Thierry teaches a second-year documentary studies course, in which one of the assignments asks students to seek out and interview somebody for a documentary film. The assignment, Thierry says, allows students to step out of their comfort zones, and gain a fresh perspective on how documentaries work.
“Documentary is one of these areas where even people who have never watched many documentaries have strong and prescriptive views about how they should be,” Thierry says. “The first thing I do in my teaching is say to students, ‘let’s watch some documentaries and try to overcome our preconceived notions about what documentaries are.
“Documentary filmmaking is storytelling, and informed filmmakers pursuing a particular set of questions.”
Another aspect of the course involves filmmakers being invited to guest lecture. “The students listen to these filmmakers, and then go out into the world and conduct interviews. They become so much more sophisticated and have a deeper understanding of what documentaries are, and what they can be.
“These filmmakers talk about their approach, as well as how they utilise documentaries to tell stories. The students are completely fascinated with it all, and it broadens their perspectives greatly.”
By encouraging students to meet filmmakers, they’re able to gain insight to filmmaking at an industry level, and what processes are needed to produce quality documentary films.
“These real world connections are such a strength of our programme,” Thierry explains. “Many of our staff create, produce, and direct their own films, and for students to learn in that environment, with filmmakers, is irreplicable.”
Learn more about studying Film at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.