The Producers

Ewa Ewart - Director

Ewa Ewart is a journalist and an award-winning filmmaker who specialises in ground breaking and influential documentaries. She was born and raised in Poland, but she has spent most of her career based at the BBC TV in London, England. She has travelled and worked in many countries, producing and directing programmes ranging from investigations, political to social observational and nature documentaries. Her documentaries have told some of the most memorable stories like the tragedy in Beslan in Russia. This film was made for the first anniversary of a terrorist attack in which more than 170 children were killed. She was the first journalist/filmmaker to expose how the regime of North Korea is testing chemical weapons on political prisoners in a secret network of jails. Ewa Ewart is also the presenter of an international documentary strand on TVN24 and TVN24Bis, American owned commercial channels in Poland.

Making The Film

Directors' Statement
In recent years, I have taken a keen interest in subjects that address human activities which result in environmental devastation. Until the Last Drop, a film that explores "in the name of progress" destruction of our life-giving rivers, is possibly my best example of such concerns. I chose to make this film because the story of rivers and people, their relationship and interconnectedness, offers the best way to convey a strong message about one of the greatest threats to human civilisation: the growing freshwater crisis.

I was inspired to make this film by recent research, which revealed how our ability to control rivers has brought some economic benefits but at great environmental cost. The research unveiled the true scale of the destruction of global rivers; only one-third of the world's rivers run naturally, free of dams and artificial channels. At the scale of the pollution of our rivers is truly alarming.

Above all, I wanted this film's message to empower the viewers. While the film reveals how irresponsible and ill-considered human activity is one of the leading causes of the freshwater crisis, it shows that we can also be part of its solution. The film also tells the inspiring story of how campaigners are fighting until the last drop to protect rivers across the world.

Ewa Ewart, Director