Last fall, Ingrid Waldron noticed something surprising on Twitter.
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A post using the hashtag for her book, There鈥檚 Something in the Water, had received thousands of likes and shares, almost overnight. Dr. Waldron, an associate professor in Dal Health鈥檚 School of Nursing with a cross appointment to the , tracked the attention back to a social media post from Oscar- and Emmy-award-nominated actor-director Elliot Page, who enthusiastically endorsed the book.
Page had read The Mill: Fifty Years of Pulp and Protest by Joan Baxter, about environmental issues in Pictou Landing First Nation, and when she went looking for more information about environmental racism, she found Dr. Waldron鈥檚 book.
About 10 months later, that tweet has turned into a powerful documentary based on Dr. Waldron鈥檚 book of the same name.
There鈥檚 Something in the Water, co-produced by Dr. Waldron, Page, Ian Daniel, and Julia Sanderson will premiere at the on Sunday, September 8, and at the Atlantic International Film Festival in Halifax on Saturday, September 14.
A scene from There's Something in the Water.
Dr. Waldron, also a senior research scholar & team lead for the Health of People of African Descent Research Cluster, Healthy Populations Institute, says Page was perfect to collaborate with on this project.
鈥淗e is humble and an excellent listener. He made it clear from the start that this project was not about him. It was about the communities living with the effects of environmental racism and the women who were advocating for them.鈥� 听
鈥淲e are thrilled and grateful that TIFF has accepted our documentary, There鈥檚 Something in the Water,鈥� said co-producers Elliot Page and Ian Daniel. 鈥淭hank you to everyone who was interviewed and opened their communities to us. We are excited to say that this is just the beginning, and hopeful that the large platform TIFF provides will help spark the change that is needed.鈥�
Star power
After she saw the tweet last year, Dr. Waldron reached out to Page on social media and the two connected. Determined to learn more about environmental racism in her home province, Page suggested set