We were lucky to catch up with Robert Strand recently and have shared our conversation below.

Robert, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

In 2022, when I founded the World Water Film Festival I could not have imagined where this journey would take me, the people we would bring together, and the actual impact we could have. We make our events both informative and fun; our New York City Host, Columbia Climate School, said our event “could be considered an antidote to the climate fatigue and apathy many sustainability advocates are feeling at this moment.”

In 2021, before a beloved acting instructor and friend died from cancer, she created a video message for her students, encouraging us to believe in ourselves, take risks, and put our acting skills to good use. I heeded her call and created a short comedic film about pharmaceutical water pollution. When I could not find a film festival about water to which to submit, with my fellow acting student Lilly Nelson I created one. We’ve been collaborating with UN water organizations and the Dutch Government, and our NYC events are hosted by the Columbia Climate School; since our 2023 launch in NYC as part of the NY Water Week and 2023 UN Water Conference, we have since held events in Wellington New Zealand, London, Orlando, multiple cities in Tanzania, Guangzhou China – and this year are planning to take events to more locations in the UK & Tanzania and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It has become meaningful to me because I have witnessed how creatives, through narrative, experimental, or documentary formats, present truth as a powerful force to inspire water matters of the mind to become matters of the heart and hands. Water professionals who have attended our events have been inspired to take new actions for water upon their return home based on something they learned at one of our events.

I see great potential to inspire positive change, and before starting this journey, I wish I had known that people don’t always see the human-to-water connection stories. There’s an awareness of climate change and water crises but very little awareness of how much these issues affect daily life for people on a global scale. We’re proud to share these stories through the medium of film with WWFF, highlighting the very real fight for change by highlighting the impact water has on families, schools, jobs, communities, and beyond.

Robert, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

By day, I am a brand licensing executive and tap my creativity, positive relationships, and ability to make connections that others don’t always see into solving problems in ways that extend reach, build loyalty, and generate revenue. Currently, I serve as the licensing agent for the Opry Entertainment Group. Among their brands, the Grand Ole Opry, which is the longest-running live broadcast show in history, turns 100 this year, and I am helping grow their business beyond the Nashville footprint.
One career stop that has influenced my approach to building the WWFF was my time at the National Basketball Association during the David Stern years. David Stern’s visionary leadership transformed the NBA into a global phenomenon – and I not only gained command of marketing, branding, and intellectual property rights management during my time, but I also learned about the importance of having a social impact on this world, initiatives like NBA Cares became integral to the league’s identity, reinforcing the idea that basketball could be a force for positive change on a global scale. So it is no surprise I recruited two other NBA Alumni to join me at the WWFF – Mare-Cécile Girard-Jones to help ensure a world-class event execution, and Stephanie Schwartz to run point as our Communications Director.
On a side note, much to the dismay of some – and pleasure of others – on our team, I am an insufferable punster and compete at NYC’s most puntastic competition Punderdome – my stage name is “Kenny Dewitt”. I did want to write a theatrical piece about puns, but then I realized it’d be just a play on words…so I’ll stick to the World Water Film Festival.
What sets us apart from other film festivals is that we blend films for everyone that highlight problems and solutions with speakers and break up serious subject matter with “water-theme-pun-breaks” with Punderdome Champions, water sommelier Milin Patel from the UK to host water tastings and explore our vocabulary around water and hold interactive discussions. At our most recent festival, we addressed some of the most significant challenges and exciting prospects we face regarding humanity’s relationship with water, with 20 short and feature films by water advocates worldwide. It also hosted a diverse group of speakers, including actor and water champion Matthew Modine, for a series of workshops and panels covering everything from plastic pollution in water to greywater recycling and how coastal cities are adapting to climate change. There were events for kids too, like family-friendly films and, courtesy of Aquamermaid, “merpeople” to talk to kids about water and pose for photo opps.
We aim to inspire the general public, policymakers, and academics to take action to protect water from pollution and overexploitation.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

We want to create impact campaigns that focus on solutions. In today’s world, people are wearing many hats, the demands of which don’t always allow bandwidth to seek new inspiration. In a couple of years , we’ve had as many as 300 film submissions focused on water – so we are in a unique position to share solutions that we see with communities needing solutions to their water issues. For example, greywater recycling is an incredible solution to reduce water consumption by using water twice; there are chemical-free systems that take bathroom shower and sink water through an appliance that cleans and re-diverts that water to toilets, clothes washing machines, garden hoses, and swimming pools. At our last event, we screened an investigative report on the topic and had Mellisa Lubitz of Hydraloop on a panel and learned about Florida’s Residential Graywater System Tax Credit, which offers a tax credit to homebuilders and developers who purchase residential graywater systems – up to $4,200 per unit; no such tax credit exists in California. We are aware of the role the broken water cycle has played in contributing to the California wildfires and the need to conserve water. So we are now working on creating an event in Los Angeles to mount an awareness and impact campaign aiming to lobby the cities of Santa Monica, Los Angeles, and Pasadena (and hopefully the state of California) to follow Florida’s lead to enact graywater system tax credits as this sadly decimated region plans to rebuild. We recognize there are bigger issues to solve currently and want to be poised to bring light to a solution that can help southern California’s climate resilience.
We are thrilled to be working with the Consulate of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in China to host two World Water Film Festival events this March in both Guangzhou and Shanghai in celebration of World Water Day 2025; films being screened have a “Dutch touch” that celebrate climate resilience innovation and a selection from “Our Blue World” from the Brave Blue World Foundation.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Many people live in the problems and not the solutions – and living in the solution can be powerful and fun. We recently screened an incredible 20-minute film from Southern Exposure Films entitled “Flu*shing Injustice” – available on their website. The film profiles Sherry Bradley and Perman Hardy, who met on an ordinary Friday afternoon. Amid national and international media recognition of the egregious sanitation and health challenges facing counties across the Black Belt in the US, they helped create an extraordinary consortium of community members, academic institutions, nonprofits, and government agencies dedicated to finding practical solutions for wastewater issues throughout the Black Belt in Alabama.

These two women came to our event, and they are a hoot and deserve to be celebrated as national treasures! Their endearing, comical personalities and resolve to create solutions are powerful – and in particular, Perman would have never dreamed her story would be captured on film, let alone be screened in NYC – and be met with multiple hugs from actor Matthew Modine after the screening. What’s more, at our event, they saw another film, Executive Produced by Modine, entitled “SLUDGE – a PFAS Uprising” about farmland application of biosolids contaminated with forever chemicals that have shut down generational farms in Maine. After our NYC event, Sherry Bradley had planned to start farmland applying the biosolids from their program. She halted that until she could determine if forever chemicals were present – to potentially prevent the travesty in Maine from becoming a new problem for the people of Alabama.

Through our events, we are building a community of filmmakers, hydrologists, academics, policymakers,, and the public. This is moving and powerful, and we can’t wait to see what’s next!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://worldwaterff.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worldwaterff/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWaterFF
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/world-water-ff/?viewAsMember=true
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@worldwaterff2896
• Other: https://vimeo.com/showcase/11455542

Image Credits

Mia Allen, Katie Saglimbene