HOW TO CARRY WATER

This punk rock fairytale doubles as a portrait of Shoog McDaniel — a fat, queer, and disabled photographer working in and around northern Florida’s vast network of freshwater springs, the state’s source of precious drinking water. For over a decade, Shoog’s photographs have transformed the way fat people view themselves and how a fat phobic society views fat bodies. Bringing Shoog’s photography to life, the film immerses audiences in a world of fat beauty and liberation, one in which marginalized bodies — including bodies of water — are sacred.

SASHA WORTZEL (director, she/they) uses video, sculpture, installation, and sound to explore how this country’s past and present are inextricably linked through resonant spaces and their hauntings. Raised in South Florida and based in New York City, Wortzel specifically attends to sites and stories systematically erased or ignored from these regions’ histories. Wortzel’s films have screened at the MOMA DocFortnight, True/False, BAMcinemaFest, Wexner Center for the Arts, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Berlinale, among others. Solo exhibitions include Dreams of Unknown Islands at Cooley Memorial Art Gallery with Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR (2022) and Oolite Arts, Miami Beach, FL (2021). Their work has been exhibited in group exhibitions at the New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and The Kitchen, New York; and SALTS, Birsfelden. Wortzel has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, Field of Vision, and Doc Society. Wortzel’s film THIS IS AN ADDRESS (2020) is distributed by Field of Vision. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARSHA! (2018; co-director Tourmaline) won special mention at Outfest and is distributed by Frameline. Wortzel’s work is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum of Harlem, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, and Miami Dade County Art in Public Places.

Starring
Shoog McDaniel

Featuring 
Matias Herrera
Melba Martinez
Anna Stein

Director of Photography
J. Bennett

Editors
Viridiana Lieberman
Grace Mendenhall

Production Designer
Megan McHugh

Composer
Geo Wyex

Sound Mixer
Raymel Casamayor

Gaffer
Ian Clontz

Grip
Niki Penalba

Makeup Artists
Emmie Pappa
Wesli Avidan

Underwater Camera Operator
Alexandra Vivas
Gabriel Defazio

Assistant Camera
Angela Reyes-Latta

Divemaster 
Gabriel Defazio

Set Medic 
Jacqueline Neetz

Graphics
Lauryn Siegel

Colorist
Esme Smith

Supervising Sound Editor / Re-recording Mixer
Filipe Messeder