Baltimore native Liz Miller, Bryn Mawr Class of 1985, was at the festival to show her documentary, The Water Front, a story of class struggle, water rights and the need for common-sense urban planning. The film centers on the plight of Highland Park, Mich., a city neighboring Detroit whose predominantly low-income African-American population suddenly found its water bills increasing exponentially after a corporate accountant brought in from the outside tried to balance the city's budget by upping the price its residents paid for water by 60 percent, and by implementing severe collection practices on past-due balances some residents never knew they had.

How did you find this story?

I was going to international conferences, and I went to a conference in Miami on water, specifically on water privatization. I heard Maureen Taylor, of Michigan Welfare Rights, talking about the 52,000 water shutoffs in Detroit alone. She's a very compelling speaker, and she moved me to want to make a movie. So I went to Highland Park, and I found that she was way too busy to be a subject of a film. But she put me in touch with some people who had had their water cut off, and I found that almost half the people in the city had had their water cut off. The irony of this city being close to the largest body of fresh water in the world was too drastic to be ignored.

How has the public reacted? The people in Highland Park?

I've shown it internationally, and I've shown it in Highland Park. The reaction to the film has been shock, in some cases indignation. Because it's had these international screenings, people are very intrigued to know that this sort of city and water problem is happening in the United States.

We screened it in Highland Park before we had finished the final cut. It was a full house, and there was heated debate. We actually recut the piece based on some of the feedback that we got. Some of the residents felt that we were showing Highland Park to be a broken city. There are residents who have lived there their whole lives, who work on a regular basis to keep their block of the city beautiful. So that was an incredibly important screening.

It was important for the film to serve as a catalyst for dialogue.

You admitted that one of the film's shortcomings is that it didn't always explain the complex issues involved adequately. Do you feel you could have done better?

The issue is, how do you balance telling a good story and informing the public? I was nervous that the water affordability plan (favored by Highland Park residents), would be more technical than audiences would be interested in. But I think people are interested in this alternative. And so, instead of lamenting, what we've done is put the entire plan on the Internet.