If there is one documentary you need to see this year, it is the recent Oscilloscope Laboratories release Flow - an incredibly informative & beautiful film about the global water crisis.

Here’s the synopsis from the site,

Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis.

Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question ‘CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?’

Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.

Dubbed “the scariest movie at the (2008) Sundance Film Festival” by Wired Magazine, I found this film to be absolutely riveting but also touching. It serves both as an urgent wake-up call and poignant love letter to the substance that sustains us all. So drop what you’re doing and go see this film!!

If it’s not in a theatres near you, you can buy the Flow DVD and find Flow on Netflix.

For street artists who struggle with the legal implications of their often hard-to-remove art, Buff Diss has found a solution: masking tape art. His creations are striking yet ephemeral - it must be neat to watch them battle wind and rain over time.

Here Buff Diss creates the work “Huw Moran RIP”:

Photos via BuffDiss

Blimps, polygraph landscapes and head-nodding beats - all in a day’s work for the creator of Dabrye’s video for “Smoking the Edge” off his album One/Three. It’s a few years old but deserves some recognition.

I’m happy to report that graffiti culture appears to be alive and well in Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

For this episode of DanweiTV, the original Internet TV station about Chinese urban culture, host and producer Adam Schokora (小石) meets up with three of Shanghai’s best known graffiti artists: Popil, Zhang Lan (AKA: Mr. Lan), and HKer, to get their perspective on the local graffiti scene and catch them in action painting a few pieces.

Photos via oopsilon

This just in from Chicago-based art collective Material Exchange, a group that deals with objects and materials whose “valued properties have diminished”: low-tech, homemade games are sought for a project that challenges the dominance high-technology.

The idea strikes me as a reverent albeit nostalgic look at simplicity for modern lives consumed by the newest, the latest, and the next big thing. Submission deadline is March 22nd, 2009.

Photo: Material Exchange Analog Pinball Machine

Yesterday I received an email from Van Jones of Green for All telling me to watch Earth: The Sequel on Wednesday, March 11th. Despite the fact that I don’t know Van Jones personally and it was clearly a mass email, I always click when I see his name because I know it will be something meaningful. This one was no different,

Our friends at the Environmental Defense Fund have partnered with the Discovery Channel to bring green energy technologies to life as never before. Am I really writing to ask you to watch TV on Wednesday? Yes. Because this special tells the story that the whole nation needs to know: We have an abundance of clean energy alternatives already available to solve the global warming crisis and rebuild a clean, green America.

Check out the trailer and, if you like what you see, sign up to watch the show: www.earththesequel.com

Pretty cool, huh? You better believe that when the new green jobs advisor to the Obama administration tells me to watch something, I’ll be tuning in.

Thumbnail image via Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Last week President Obama (I still love saying that) announced plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by August 2010. But what about the millions of Iraqis who have been displaced as a result of the war? 1 in 5 Iraqis have been uprooted by violence in their homeland. Many have fled to Syria, and their situation is growing increasingly desperate.

In response to these recent developments, Refugees International has launched a new campaign urging President Obama to do more to help Iraqi refugees.

The campaign features a petition urging the Obama administration to:

1. Assist Iraqi refugees.
2. Ensure a safe, voluntary return home when possible.
3. Pressure Iraq to meet its responsibilities to its own people.
4. Increase resettlement for those who can’t go home.

Supporters can sign the petition here: http://www.refugeesinternational.org/iraq

The campaign also features two candid videos about the lives of Iraqi refugees in Syria:

The View From Syria

Khaled’s Story

Check out this gorgeous new music video by Xavier Chassaing for musician Fedaden’s song “contre coeur”. The video was created entirely with a still camera using an innovative mix of stop motion and live projection mapping techniques from more than 35,000 photographs. It certainly is an eye-opener in terms of what you can do with hard work and a still camera.

Thanks to Adam for the tip!

It’s finally that time of year again! Starting today, video submissions are being accepted for the 3rd Annual DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards, co-sponsored by The Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) and See3 Communications. Nonprofit organizations and foundations are encouraged to submit their videos at www.dogooder.tv/contest2009!

This year’s theme, “Everyone’s Doing It”, is meant to include submissions of all shapes and sizes, from organizational vlogs, to staff-produced web clips, to high-end, professionally produced videos.

According to Michael Hoffman, CEO of See3 Communications, “2008 was a great year for video, and we continue to see incredible growth each year in the number of nonprofits using video. With camera and equipment costs down, organizations have nothing holding them back from using video as a communications tool. We’ve seen some really innovative, powerful videos this year, and we hope the DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards will highlight that.”

Last year, more than 160 entries were received from over 100 nonprofit organizations. The top winning videos were from the Humane Society of the United States, Greenpeace International, and the Center for Constitution Rights. The winning videos receive thousands of views and publicity online and offline.

Video submissions will be accepted until March 26, when a panel of judges will select the finalists in each category. The public voting period will open on April 7 and end on April 26. The winners will be announced at NTEN’s annual Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) in San Francisco, which takes place April 26-28, 2009. Winners will be featured on The Nonprofit Times website.

You can register for the NTC at www.nten.org/ntc.

Today as the world comes together for Obama’s Inauguration, a team of innovators are working to bring us closer through the power of video.

The Global Lives Project is a collective effort of more than 250 volunteer filmmakers, artists, architects, programmers and everyday people from around the world to build and display a video library of human life experience. Their goal is to record 24 hours in the lives of ten people that roughly represent the diversity of our planet’s population.

These ten lives will come together in an innovative video installation and form the basis of a collaborative online video encyclopedia of human life. Sound cool? If you’re in Asia, Eastern Europe or Africa, the project is looking for additional teams. Visit GlobalLives.org for more info!