Last fall the water underground brought “The Gold Fish” a queer slapstick musical about water politics and salmon migration to the Crocker Museum in Sacramento, the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Grass Valley, and venues in the east bay and San Francisco.

6 months July 13th and 14th later we brought the play to Counterpulse in san francisco directed by Ezra Nepon. At our performances, we’ve used the live version to spark discussions on water infrastructure, river restoration, and political opportunities to create new cultures of water and connect to international water struggles (aka The Water Wars).

in the spring We were working on adapting the stage play by July Cole into a screenplay and shooting The Gold Fish film in the mission and around the bay area. The film will reach an even broader audience, and is meant to become a centerpiece of education, community science, and water activism by the ever-growing Water Underground.

This film is informative… but it is far from a documentary about water.
We are talking about an underwater casino owned by an evil water Tycoon where Miss Coho has to gamble her eggs to try and win River passage. The whole ecosystem is somehow working for slave wages in this place and we heard whisper of a gang of Water Nymphs who are underground union organizers even amongst the ranks of Army Choir of Engineers… oh… did we forget to mention this is a MUSICAL?
The film will be shot in HD and run 40 minutes, following a three act structure. Rife with double entendre and stunning visuals, the Gold Fish engages the audience with the politics of water and dam removal using memorable characters, camp humor and show tunes.

Gold Fish work sample. from sarolta jane cump on Vimeo.

We’ve been doing lots of local fundraising to do initial sound recording and set building and now have kicked off our grassroots fundraising campaign for production costs. We dive into filming next week for 3 days and again for a weekend in mid-June. On top of several fundraising events we are producing around the bay area this year, we are running an Indie Go Go Campaign to fund the film.

The water underground is a loosely organized network of individuals. We depend on our community to spread the word and to help us raise our modest goal for this very serious undertaking.
Every drop counts. every email forwarded to your own community counts. If all you can do is let other folks who might be interested in the film know about our campaign… that is a huge thing by itself. just by visiting the page, helps get the attention we need… Everyone on this planet is impacted by water politics in some way or another.
if you can, we do appreciate ANY size donation. Every drop counts.

for more information:
www.indiegogo.com/TheGoldFish indiegogo campaign
saroltajanecump.com/news.htm directors website
and yes…. the Water Underground is on facecrack <3

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